Team:

Lead: Shaojun Cai is a 3rd year PhD student at the NUS School of Computing, who specializes in robotic navigation and interaction with humans. He has years of experience in autonomous driving industry, and he leads the technology development of this project.

Yingjia Wan is a psychologist specializing in joint action and social interaction. Her role in the project centered around user experience research and product development.

Shuya Lu, is a final year PhD student in Sociology at NUS who is experienced with social studies and interviews. She was responsible for conducting user research and managing collaboration with social institutions.

Yuhui Yuan is a senior associate in investment banking and has experience in industry design.

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Project overview:

The team developed a robotic guide dog that can help visually impaired users move around safely and independently.

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Why the team applied for the CCSGP fellowship:

The team believes that their goal, that is using state-of-the-art technology to improve the life quality of visually impaired people in the community, aligns well with CCSGP’s mission of encouraging the IT community in NUS to give back to society.

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What the team learned from the CCSGP experience:

Participating in this project gave the team the opportunity to build meaningful connections with a disabled community: people with visual impairments. Through interviews, surveys, and testing, the team learned about their struggles and started thinking more about how research and technological advancement can be used to build a world that is more inclusive and barrier-free. One main challenge they learned during product development was that individual users have very diverse vision conditions and needs, so it is difficult to find a solution that suits all users. However, they all experienced difficulty in navigating in new environments or adapting to changes in existing environments regardless of their eye condition or lifestyle, so a robotic guide dog is an universally appealing solution. The team has collected a lot of feedback from trials, and are on their way to further productize the robot dog so that it can be available to more users soon.

 

About the project:

The project aims to develop a robotic guide dog that helps people with visual impairment to lead a more independent life. The key technology is an intelligent AI system that enables the dog to navigate in any environment and that communicates with the user through the leash or by voice. The robotic dog is a multi-function companion that can be owned by individuals, public facilities, community centers, etc. 

 

The team first conducted surveys and interviews with visually impaired individuals and specialty organizations to assess user needs when getting around on their own. They then developed a prototype and conducted trials with individual users. They collected feedback from users and continued improving the design of the product. In general, the users found the product to be very helpful, as it is easy to use, reliable, and high-tech. They were excited for this product to come to market so that they can experience its full functionality in daily life.

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Beside trials with individual users, the team has also been in contact with social organizations designated for improving the welfare of visually impaired people. They look to have more collaborations with these partner organizations so that the products can become more accessible to more people in the community.