ABB Robots and Robot Guide Dogs: Navigation for All

From a 1940 guide dog in Helsinki to China's Xiaoyuan wheeled-legged guide robot, and how ABB's Visual SLAM mobile robots and cobots move safely around people.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

9/25/20261 min read

In July 1940, a photographer in Helsinki followed a blind man and his guide dog as they boarded a tram. The picture belongs to a series on guide dogs for people blinded in the war. A trained dog could stop at kerbs and lead its owner around obstacles, but each one took a long time to train.

Black and white photo of a man with a cane and a German shepherd guide dog stepping onto a tram
Black and white photo of a man with a cane and a German shepherd guide dog stepping onto a tram

A blind man and his guide dog boarding a tram in Helsinki, July 1940. Photo: Hugo Sundström / Finnish Heritage Agency via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

The long white cane, which spread after the Second World War, is cheap and always at hand. It only finds what it touches, though, so it misses things at head height such as branches or scaffolding. Trained dogs are still scarce, and in China, the South China Morning Post reported, the shortage is severe.

Man in a cap and blue shirt walking along a busy pavement with a long white cane
Man in a cap and blue shirt walking along a busy pavement with a long white cane

A blind man walking with a long white cane. Photo: Jay Galvin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

This month the Zhiyuan Research Institute showed a guide robot called Xiaoyuan at the China Care and Rehabilitation Expo in Beijing. It stands on four legs with wheels, rolling quietly on flat ground so its user can still hear traffic and walking up stairs. It spots overhead obstacles and avoided 99% of obstacles indoors in testing.

Man seated in a train priority seat with his guide dog lying at his feet
Man seated in a train priority seat with his guide dog lying at his feet

A guide dog on a Sydney train, 2014. Photo: John Robert McPherson / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

ABB doesn't build guide robots, but its mobile robots deal with the same navigation problem inside factories. The Flexley Mover P603 and P604 use Visual SLAM, a camera system that lets each robot draw its own map, find its position to within 10 mm and share that map with the rest of the fleet.

Low white ABB mobile robot carrying stacked blue crates across a factory floor
Low white ABB mobile robot carrying stacked blue crates across a factory floor

ABB's Flexley Mover P603 mobile robot, which navigates with Visual SLAM, carrying crates. Photo: ABB

The other half of the problem is moving safely among people. ABB's concept mobile YuMi was designed to sense hospital staff and steer around them on its own, and the GoFa cobot has sensors in every joint so it stops if it touches someone.

White two-armed ABB YuMi robot on a mobile base in a hospital corridor
White two-armed ABB YuMi robot on a mobile base in a hospital corridor

ABB's concept mobile YuMi, designed to steer around hospital staff on its own. Photo: ABB

I think guide robots will show up first in places with fixed maps, such as hospitals, airports and big stations, where shared maps of the kind ABB's robots use would help. A dog gives companionship that a robot won't. Even so, a robot guide could let far more people get around on their own.

Woman guiding a white ABB GoFa cobot arm by hand at a workbench
Woman guiding a white ABB GoFa cobot arm by hand at a workbench

ABB's GoFa cobot has sensors in all six joints and stops on contact. Photo: ABB

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