Understanding User Preferences of a Slope-Aware Variable-Admittance Filter for a Robot Guide Dog

Abstract:This letter investigates how the parameters of a slope-aware variable-admittance filter influence user preferences in force-based interaction with a robotic guide dog for visually impaired individuals. The proposed system consists of a quadruped robot equipped with a sensor-free rigid handle for physical guidance. The framework combines path following, momentum-based interaction-wrench estimation, and a variable-admittance filter whose stiffness and damping are adapted online from slope information extracted by the robot's depth camera. The adaptation policies are evaluated through high-fidelity simulations and a human-subject study involving blindfolded sighted participants. Multiple strategies are compared using a Taguchi L9 design of experiments. Preliminary main-effect results suggest that increasing stiffness uphill and decreasing it downhill improves both objective and subjective metrics, whereas damping shows no significant main effect.

Robotics (cs.RO)

arXiv:2609.15362 [cs.RO]

(or arXiv:2609.15362v1 [cs.RO] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.15362 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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