EAGER: Guide Drones for Blind Athletes

在美国，大约有2500万人有视力障碍，其中130万人是法定盲人。 缺乏体育活动是这些人的一个严重健康问题，他们很少有机会参加体育活动，提供维持适当健康和支持健康生活方式所需的刺激量和种类，原因有很多：缺乏锻炼伙伴或有视力的指导;安全问题;以及普遍缺乏可供选择的活动。 跑步是一种流行的运动形式，提供各种心血管健康益处，但要在户外跑步，盲人运动员目前必须依靠视力正常的人使用系绳安全地引导他们;除了遇到一个时间安排一致并愿意一起锻炼的人的挑战外，这种对他人的依赖性对盲人的锻炼频率和持续时间产生了很大的限制。有人建议，机器人可以允许盲人锻炼，残疾人可以过上更独立的生活，但以前探索的方法主要涉及以缓慢速度移动的地面机器人。 由于跑步的速度比步行快得多，因此该探索性项目将研究使用无人驾驶飞行器（通常称为无人机）来安全地引导盲人跑步者。 盲人运动员仅基于声音跟随在他/她前方固定距离处飞行的无人机，没有人类运动同伴，也没有系绳阻碍他/她的跑步能力。 PI将采用一个商用的低成本四轴飞行器平台，通过智能手机上的应用程序进行控制，以探索音频反馈机制，使盲人跑步者能够有效地跟随无人机，同时避开障碍物，并纠正无意中偏离路线的情况。PI已经获得了一名盲人铁人三项运动员的合作，作为该项目的顾问，提供设计问题的反馈，参与早期试验，并帮助招募受试者。 本研究将为非视觉人机交互的研究做出重要贡献，同时为建立设计原则和新型辅助技术奠定基础。 未来这项工作的潜在扩展可能涉及将无人机用于其他体育活动，如游泳或骑自行车，在这些活动中使用接地机器人和皮带是不切实际的。

There are approximately 25 million people with visual impairments in the United States, including 1.3 million who are legally blind. Lack of physical activity is a serious health concern for these individuals, who have fewer opportunities to engage in physical activities that provide the amounts and kinds of stimulation necessary to maintain adequate fitness and to support a healthy lifestyle, for a number of reasons: a lack of exercise partners or sighted guides with whom to exercise; safety concerns; and a general lack of accessible activities to choose from. Running is a popular form of exercise that offers various cardiovascular health benefits, but to run outdoors blind athletes must currently rely on a sighted person to safely guide them using a tether; in addition to the challenge of meeting someone who has a compatible schedule and is willing to exercise together, this dependency on others puts significant constraints on the frequency and duration with which blind individuals can exercise.It has been suggested that robots may allow individuals with disabilities to lead more independent lives, but the approaches that have previously been explored primarily involve grounded robots moving at slow speeds. Because running is performed at a much faster pace than walking, this exploratory project will investigate the use of an unmanned aerial vehicle (commonly referred to as a drone) to safely guide a blind runner. The blind athlete follows the drone, which is flying ahead of him/her at a fixed distance, on the basis of sound alone, with no human exercise companion and no tether to impede his/her ability to run. The PI will employ a commercially available low-cost quadcopter platform that is controlled using an app on a smartphone, to explore audio feedback mechanisms that allow a blind runner to effectively follow the drone while avoiding obstacles and also correcting for unintentional veering off course.The PI has secured the collaboration of a blind triathlon athlete as a consultant on this project, to provide feedback on design issues, to participate in early trials, and to help with subject recruitment. This research will make significant contributions in nonvisual Human-Robot Interaction while establishing design principles and laying the foundations for a new kind of assistive technology. Potential future extensions to the work could involve the use of guide drones for other physical activities such as swimming or cycling, where the use of a grounded robot and leash is impractical.