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Guide dogs
\"Did you know that modern guide dogs came to the United States in 1929? Guide dogs help people whose bodies do not work quite right. Learn more about the work these dogs do in Guide Dogs, a title in the Dogs with Jobs series. Each title in this series profiles a specific type of working dog, showcasing the role it performs and the training required to get the job done.\"--Publisher's description.
Book
Simulating the obstacle avoidance behavior day and night based on the visible-infrared MoS2/Ge heterojunction field-effect phototransistor
The contradiction between the high number of visually handicapped people and the scarcity of guide dogs has stimulated the demand for electronic guide dogs (EGDs). Here, we demonstrate an EGD by leveraging piezoresistors on a MoS
2
/Ge heterostructure for simultaneous pressure-sensing and optical-sensing functions. The device has excellent gating capability and exhibits large positive and negative photoresponses under visible (532 nm, 182 A/W) and infrared (1550 nm, 37 A/W) illumination. These characteristics allow the device to efficiently classify different obstacles at all times of day using pressure and light signals. The device reaches nearly 100% accuracy after 48 training sessions when used to classify frequent scenes. The device adopts passive and active detection modes during the day and night, respectively, which improves the battery life of the EGD. This work provides a significant reference for the future design of EGDs, which may help a greater number of visually impaired people by reducing the cost of such devices.
Journal Article
The trouble with Tuck
Helen and her dog, Friar Tuck, are inseparable for three years, but as Tuck begins going blind, Helen trains him to trust in his own Seeing-Eye dog.
Book
TFP-YOLO: Obstacle and Traffic Sign Detection for Assisting Visually Impaired Pedestrians
With the increasing demand for intelligent mobility assistance among the visually impaired, machine guide dogs based on computer vision have emerged as an effective alternative to traditional guide dogs, owing to their flexible deployment and scalability. To enhance their visual perception capabilities in complex urban environments, this paper proposes an improved YOLOv8-based detection algorithm, termed TFP-YOLO, designed to recognize traffic signs such as traffic lights and crosswalks, as well as small obstacle objects including pedestrians and bicycles, thereby improving the target detection performance of machine guide dogs in complex road scenarios. The proposed algorithm incorporates a Triplet Attention mechanism into the backbone network to strengthen the perception of key regions, and integrates a Triple Feature Encoding (TFE) module to achieve collaborative extraction of both local and global features. Additionally, a P2 detection head is introduced to improve the accuracy of small object detection, particularly for traffic lights. Furthermore, the WIoU loss function is adopted to enhance training stability and the model’s generalization capability. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves a detection accuracy of 93.9% and a precision of 90.2%, while reducing the number of parameters by 17.2%. These improvements significantly enhance the perception performance of machine guide dogs in identifying traffic information and obstacles, providing strong technical support for subsequent path planning and embedded deployment, and demonstrating considerable practical application value.
Journal Article
Spotlight on Assistance Dogs—Legislation, Welfare and Research
Assistance dogs are a very diverse group of working dogs that are trained to assist humans with different types of disabilities in their daily lives. Despite these dogs’ value for humankind, research on their welfare status, cognitive and behavioural capacities, selection criteria for the best fitting individuals, effective training and management practices, and genetic issues are so far lacking. This review highlights the need to address these topics and to promote progress in legal issues around assistance dogs. The topic of assistance dogs is approached comprehensively by outlining the current status of knowledge in three different dimensions: (1) the legal dimension, outlining important legal issues in the EU and Australia; (2) the welfare dimension; and (3) the dimension of research, covering assistance dog selection and training. For each of these three dimensions, we discuss potential approaches that can be implemented in the future in order to support assistance dog working performance, to protect the dogs’ welfare, and to improve our knowledge about them. Additionally, there remain many legal issues, such as the presence of assistance dogs in public areas, the resolution of which would benefit both the assistance dog and the owner with disability.
Journal Article
Assistance Dogs: Historic Patterns and Roles of Dogs Placed by ADI or IGDF Accredited Facilities and by Non-Accredited U.S. Facilities
Dogs' roles to support people with disabilities are increasing. Existing U.S. laws and regulations pertaining to the use of dogs for people with disabilities are only minimally enforced. Pushback legislation against some aspects of uses of assistance dogs currently is being passed or proposed in several states. Further, the U.S. Department of the Army and the Veterans' Administration support only dogs trained by an Assistance Dogs International (ADI) or International Guide Dog Federation (IGDF) accredited facility. Lacking a mandatory national process for screening the selection, training, and placement of assistance dogs with persons who have disabilities, the U.S. offers a creative but confusing opportunity for people to train their own dogs for any disability. While no U.S. surveillance system monitors assistance dogs, other countries generally have a legislated or regulatory process for approving assistance dogs or a cultural convention for obtaining dogs from accredited facilities. We conducted an online survey investigating current demographics of assistance dogs placed in 2013 and 2014 with persons who have disabilities, by facilities worldwide that are associated with ADI or IGDF and by some non-accredited U.S. facilities. Placement data from ADI and IGDF facilities revealed that in most countries aside from the U.S., guide dogs were by far the main type of assistance dog placed. In the U.S., there were about equal numbers of mobility and guide dogs placed, including many placed by large older facilities, along with smaller numbers of other types of assistance dogs. In non-accredited U.S. facilities, psychiatric dogs accounted for most placements. Dogs for families with an autistic child were increasing in all regions around the world. Of dog breeds placed, accredited facilities usually mentioned Labrador Retrievers and Golden Retrievers, and sometimes, German Shepherd Dogs. The facilities bred their dogs in-house, or acquired them from certain breeders. Non-accredited facilities more often used dogs from shelters or assisted people in training their own dogs. Facilities in Europe and the U.S. place dogs in all roles; other parts of the world primarily focus on guide dogs. Expansion of assistance dogs in many roles is continuing, with numbers of dogs placed accelerating internationally.
Journal Article
Animals helping at home
\"Learn how animals can be trained to help people with household tasks.\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Handlers’ Expectations and Perceived Compatibility regarding the Partnership with Their First Guide Dogs
The main function of a guide dog is as a mobility aid, but they can also fulfill psychosocial roles as companions, social facilitators, and objects/providers of affection. This study examined the outcome of 50 peoples’ (handlers) partnerships with their first guide dog. Overall compatibility and the fulfilment of the handlers’ expectations regarding mobility and social factors related to guide dog usage were measured, and relationships between putative risk factors and the outcome of matching success were identified. The findings demonstrate that the dogs are generally exceeding expectations. The high average ratings of compatibility were notable, particularly with respect to the emotional compatibility between handler and dog. Comparing responses of those who felt the handler-dog pairing was a good match with those who felt it was a mismatch revealed it was the working aspects of the relationship that differentiated the two groups. However, the many aspects of life with a guide dog, beyond the complexities of the working relationship, suggest that a more nuanced compatibility measure accommodating both positive and negative aspects of the relationship could assist with matching, training and follow up of the handler-dog team to maximize success.
Journal Article