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Guide dogs are the "eyes" of the visually impaired. In the mainland, compared with the huge visually impaired population, guide dogs are very scarce. According to the data of the China Blind Association, there are currently 17.31 million visually impaired people in the mainland, but the number of guide dogs in service is only about 400. Far from reaching the 1% penetration rate recognized by the International Guide Dog Federation, why are guide dogs so scarce?
According to the staff of the base, the training of guide dogs due to the long cycle, including dog food, epidemic prevention, daily water, electricity, venue and labor costs, etc., the average cost of training a guide dog is about 200,000 yuan, and as a public welfare organization, the funding source of the base is mainly funded by the government and caring people, and there is no long-term stable source of funding. Many employees are engaged in the work of trainers with the emotion of guide dogs, and the turnover is serious.
In the case that the number of traditional guide dogs is difficult to increase in the short term, a few days ago, the team of Northwestern Polytechnical University developed an intelligent guide dog, trying to lead the blind to cross the road, go up the steps, take the elevator, etc. in the future. Recently, through module upgrades, this intelligent guide dog is also continuously improving its real-time intelligent response ability and human-computer interaction experience.
At present, the intelligent guide dog can be used in the absence of network or poor network signal. However, there is still a long way to go from scientific research to practical application.
Sun Zhe, associate professor of Northwestern Polytechnical University: It is not enough to build such a simple framework. For example, if we put this dog in a crowd or at a crowded intersection, the intelligent guide dog will think that the surrounding environment is full of obstacles, and it will not work. Therefore, in order to solve these problems, we need to develop some functional modules in a targeted manner.
The R&D team said that the current cost of smart dogs is relatively high, and the cost of future iteration of technology will continue to decrease, and the team will also "teach" intelligent guide dogs to judge the different emotions of their owners by adding micro-expression recognition functions, so as to provide corresponding services.
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Editor: Angel