Human-centered development of a guide dog robot
Project 2024-25
Project Title: Human-centered Development of a Guide Dog Robot
The Dynamic and Autonomous Robotic Systems (DARoS) Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences is creating robotic systems for common goods. Our primary research area is in the dynamic locomotion of legged systems with a focus on the development of control architectures and their experimental validation. The ultimate goal of our group is to develop robots to be practical tools for human life by enhancing robotic systems to be faster, smarter, and more robust.
Project Description
The students will work together with our quadruped robot developed to assist people with visual impairments. We will discuss how to enhance machine perception to recognize important objects in the scene (tactile pave, crosswalk, cars, or electric scooters). Some python coding, hardware management, and field study such as data gathering using the robot in the campus and near to Amherst area, process the data, and train neural networks will be performed.
Learning Objectives:
How the machine vision is developed and what you need to prepare to train a neural network.
Skills needed:
General concept about what quadruped robots are (can be learned by watching some Youtube videos of quadruped robots)
(Optional) Knowledge of path planning and/ Machine Vision