Iván Hernández Dalas: Binghamton researchers create robotic guide dogs that walk — and talk
Scientists have developed a robotic guide dog that communicates with the visually impaired and provides real-time feedback during travel. Source: Jonathan Cohen, Binghamton University Guide dogs are powerful allies, leading the visually impaired safely to their destinations, but they can’t talk with their owners — until now. Using large language models (LLMs), a team of researchers at Binghamton University, part of the State University of New York, has created a talking robot guide dog. The system can determine an ideal route and safely guide users to their destinations, offering real-time feedback along the way. “For this work, we’re demonstrating an aspect of the robotic guide dog that is more advanced than biological guide dogs,” said Shiqi Zhang , an associate professor at the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science’s School of Computing. “Real dogs can understand around 20 commands at best,” he noted. “But for robotic guide dogs, you can just put GP...