HCC: Small: FIDO - Facilitating Interaction for Dogs with Occupations: Wearable computing for two-way communication with assistance dogs

辅助犬改善了成千上万残疾人的生活。导盲犬、服务犬和助听犬可以提供独立性，并显著提高生活质量。然而，人类和狗伴侣之间的交流目前是有限的。处理者发出命令，狗用行为回应，这些行为有时对处理者来说意义模糊。例如，一只导盲犬和它的训练员一起散步时停下来，但它没有明确的方法告诉训练员在熟悉的道路上有一个新的障碍。一只助听犬提醒他的训导员，但不能轻易报告火警已经响起，他们需要撤离。服务犬可能需要在黑暗、拥挤的剧院里，或者从远处无声地接受“躺下”的命令，这将排除口头或手势信号。PI在这项研究中的目标是探索可穿戴技术的基本方面，以支持辅助犬与其训导员之间的双向通信。为此，PI将研究将电子纺织品和计算机集成到辅助犬服装（如背心和挽具）中的狗的身体接口。研究将评估狗与身上佩戴的功能互动的能力，并确定狗能从可穿戴技术中感知和理解哪些刺激。这项工作将分为三个重点：狗与训导员的交流（确定狗在多大程度上可以激活它们的挽具、背心、外套或项圈上的功能，比如可以通过狗的鼻子触摸激活的“触摸点”，以及可以通过牵引激活的“拉点”）；训犬师与狗之间的交流（研究狗对狗背心或狗具（如小型振动马达）中的简单刺激作出反应的感官能力）；处理者反馈和控制（团队将实现头戴式视觉和/或听觉显示，允许处理者接收来自他们的狗的输入，以及可以集成到处理者所穿的马具手柄，皮带或一件衣服中的控制接口）。设计和测试狗的身体接口将使用迭代方法进行，最终设计将在实验室和现实环境中由三只辅助训练的狗进行验证。PI还将在障碍赛道上用狗对设计进行压力测试。更广泛的影响：项目成果将把可穿戴界面的最新技术扩展到动物身上，并将为动物计算机界面和物种间互动的新兴领域做出开创性的工作，以及发现更多关于狗的身体和认知能力。将人类领域的可用性分析和设计技术应用于动物将扩展交互计算的知识体系。除了提高残疾人生活质量的直接影响外，该项目开发的技术还可以应用于其他工作犬队（例如，军事或警察犬队，以及搜救队），最终可能使所有宠物主人更好地与他们的狗交流和训练。

Assistance dogs have improved the lives of thousands of people with disabilities. Guide dogs, service dogs, and hearing dogs can provide independence and significantly enhance quality of life. However, communication between human and canine partners is currently limited. Handlers give commands, and dogs respond with behaviors, which can sometimes have ambiguous meanings to the handlers. For example, a guide dog stops while walking with his handler, but the dog has no definitive way to tell the handler there is a new barrier on a familiar path. A hearing dog alerts his handler, but can't easily report that the fire alarm has sounded and they need to evacuate. A service dog may need to receive a "lie down" command silently in a dark, crowded theater, or from a distance, which would preclude verbal or hand signals. The PI's goal in this research is to explore fundamental aspects of wearable technologies to support two-way communication between assistance dogs and their handlers. To this end, the PI will investigate on-body interfaces for dogs in the form of electronic textiles and computers integrated into assistance dog clothing, such as vests and harnesses. Studies will assess the abilities of dogs to interact with affordances worn on their bodies, and determine what stimuli dogs can sense and comprehend from wearable technology. The work will be divided into three thrusts: Dog-to-handler communication (to determine to what extent dogs can activate affordances on their harnesses, vests, coats, or collars, such as "touch points" which can be activated by a dog's nose touch, and "pull points" which can be activated by tugging); Handler-to-dog communication (to investigate the sensory capabilities of dogs to respond to simple stimuli incorporated into a dog vest or harness, such as small vibrating motors); Handler feedback and control (the team will implement a head-mounted visual and/or auditory display to allow handlers to receive input from their dogs, as well as control interfaces that can be integrated into a harness handle, leash, or a piece of clothing worn by the handler). Design and testing of the on-body interfaces for the dogs will be carried out using an iterative approach, and the final designs will be validated with three assistance-trained dogs in laboratory and real-world environments. The PI will also stress-test the designs with dogs at speed on an obstacle course.Broader Impacts: Project outcomes will extend the state of the art in wearable interfaces to animals, and will contribute pioneering work to the nascent fields of Animal Computer Interfaces and Inter-species Interaction, as well as discovering more about the physical and cognitive abilities of dogs. Adapting usability analysis and design techniques from the human realm to apply to animals will expand the body of knowledge in Interactive Computing. In addition to the direct impact of improving the quality of life for people with disabilities, the technologies developed in this project could have application to other working dog teams (e.g., in military or police canine units, and in search and rescue), and they may ultimately allow all pet owners to better communicate with and train their dogs.