An AI Suitcase ‘guide dog’ for people with visual disabilities

J-STORIES - Guide dogs are important partners for people with visual disabilities, helping them navigate corners, and warning them of steps and other obstacles. However, there are some things that guide dogs can’t do. For example, they can’t automatically lead their owners to a destination in the same way as, say, a car GPS can. Nor are guide dogs permitted on all transport systems or allowed in all restaurants and hospitals.

With these issues in mind, the Consortium for Advanced Assistive Mobility Platform (CAAMP), which includes university research institutes and major companies such as IBM Japan, has developed the AI Suitcase. This suitcase-type robot equipped with a computer, image recognition sensors, cameras and motors can safely guide sight-impaired users to their destination in a similar way to a guide dog -- but using AI. Demonstration tests are underway in various locations, and practical use by the public may soon follow.

Users set their destination using a dedicated smartphone app, then, as soon as they grip the handle, the AI Suitcase automatically starts to move. The handle contains a sensor that tells the suitcase to move when the user holds it and to stop when the user lets go. The handle vibrates to indicate the direction the suitcase will move in next.

The system also includes functions to help visually impaired people enjoy a pleasant, unhindered walk to their destination, such as using AI to provide information about shops and people they pass along the way. For example, if they enter a shop, the system can use cloud data and image recognition to tell users about the products for sale.

This functionality is enabled by LiDAR sensors that accurately measure the distance between the user and obstacles; it is the same technology used by self-driving cars. It also relies on real-time “kinematics” technology that uses satellite signals and data from ground stations. The AI Suitcase contains a computer that processes the huge amount of data collected by these technologies, processes it, and accurately determines its location, even in complex outdoor environments.

The project was initiated by Chieko Asakawa, Chief Executive Director of the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan) and a fellow of the University of Tokyo’s Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST). Asakawa began to lose her sight after a swimming pool accident while in elementary school, and by age 14, she was completely blind. She has been working on researching IT for accessibility since her previous role at IBM. Her goal is a society where people with visual disabilities can walk around independently and without worry.

At a Miraikan briefing to mark her appointment as Director, Asakawa said: “I want to use the AI Suitcase to show that technology can produce such significant change. And I want to keep looking out for new technologies.”

The AI Suitcase hasn’t yet been commercialized due to unsolved issues, such as outdoor data measurement and complex obstacles like crowds. But members of the public have conducted demonstration tests of the navigation technology indoors in places such as large shopping malls, New Chitose Airport in Hokkaido, and at Miraikan in Tokyo. Tests have also taken place in the outdoor area between Miraikan and the nearest train station.

A monthlong test in Tokyo’s Nihonbashi district in September 2022 involved 39 people with visual disabilities using the AI Suitcases to travel to multiple destinations on the same floor of a building. All users were able to arrive safely without collisions or other problems.

Meanwhile, since April, Miraikan has been conducting regular tests of the AI Suitcase to help users experience its permanent exhibits, enabling more test data to be collected. Lastly, this May it was announced that more demonstration tests of the suitcase will take place at Expo 2025, the world expo due to take place in Osaka for six months from April 2025.

The AI Suitcase was selected for a “Robot Experience” exhibit that will display and demonstrate various next-generation robots. A special dual indoor/outdoor model of the suitcase is being planned for the expo, with a number of improvements, including new wheels that make it easier to deal with steps, and a new sensor that can recognize even obstacles low to the ground.

A spokesman for CAAMP, Masashi Oikawa, told J-Stories, “So that the AI Suitcase can one day be used by the public, we intend to tell many people in Japan and abroad about it, improve technical performance for smooth indoor and outdoor use, and check requirements not related to function, i.e., social acceptability and legal compliance.”He added that they hope to allow 2,000 to 3,000 people without visual disabilities to test and experience the AI Suitcase during the expo.

Translated by Tony McNicol

Top photo: Consortium for Advanced Assistive Mobility Platform (CAAMP)

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