Could Drones Be Used in Accessibility?

The Expanse, a sify space TV Series on Amazon prime, shows a blind man navigating space ship with the help of drones.
It's a bit too far in to the future, so that the drones are able to directly stream the video feed in to his mind, but still, the drones basically fly in front of him, effectively acting as a self-navigating, flying cane.
I believe it's in the last season of the show. And just FYI, the guy gets killed soon.

Has your self-driving car shipped yet?

I saw this topic and I saw this video recently on YouTube where Sam from the blind life YouTube channel has an accessible drone. The link is below.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=KF8Jny6Rgok&si=Q-OPgvoKqaAVADkq

Thanks applevis! I follow Sam sometimes but didn't know about this video. Now I am very attempted to buy this shit (positively). Nice video and concept.

I can't think of any real usecase for us but as you so ellegantly said, just like a pet drone. A (blind) friend of mine had one back in 2015 or so.

Security-minded folk may not like such drones at their offices or in their homes.

As an engineer working in assistive tech, and as someone who has worked in vision technology for a few decades, I'll make the bold claim that flying drones and sensing technology are currently sufficient to provide certain types of accessibility and guidance. One of my company's advisors has brought this up several times, we've talked about it, and I even purchased a drone in the hope of testing some concepts.

However, there are several barriers to deploying flying drones and wheeled autonomous vehicles. I may run into the character limit for AppleVis posts describing some of those barriers, but this is an important subject. I'll address flying drones first.

First, any company developing assistive tech for guidance needs liability insurance. At the present time my company just has an iOS app, and the iOS app includes safety messages and other caveats, but I still need liability insurance. The insurance agent made very clear that some insurers would not underwrite something riskier.

With drones, safety is a huge concern. Even a small, lightweight drone could potentially fly right into the user's face, or into a dog, or could crash into a pedestrian, car, truck, or the like. In countries that are more litigious, imagine what that court case would be like. Since assistive tech companies tend to be just one person, or a handful of people, a single lawsuit could effectively kill the company and the technology.

There are industrial arm robots that can operate safely next to people, and there are sensors that can prevent even large industrial robots from colliding into objects. (I have a patent in one such technology.) However, industrial arm robots are attached to the ground, and they have massive motors that can stop them quickly.

A flying drone, if it's moving at any speed, may not be able to stop quickly enough. For everyday use, a drone might fly where there are cars, pedestrians, dogs, birds, and so on, all of which are moving at different speeds. It would be exceedingly tricky to make a drone that successfully dodges all potential collisions.

In many states in the United States, and presumably in other countries, it's necessary either to have a license to fly a drone, or the drone can only be flown at certain altitudes in certain areas. People may fly the drones elsewhere, but sometimes in violation of the law.

If you're outside and can use Google Maps, AppleMaps, or an accessible outdoor guidance app, and if you have good O&M skills, then a drone wouldn't offer much additional help.

If you're inside then I'd be very surprised if a drone would be allowed at all. I doubt that even a series of ADA lawsuits would lead to allowing drones to fly indoors.

For wheeled autonomous vehicles as robot guide dogs I expect we won't see much for a while. If the Glidance does well then that might pave the way for autonomous vehicles, but I suspect the combination of sensing and good O&M skills will continue to to beat tech solutions.

One of my advisors tested an ultrasonic device some years ago. He liked it, but even after a week or two he noticed that his cane skills and other O&M skills slipped a bit. Reliance on tech can be a problem.

To wrap up briefly, I'll say that as a developer of assistive tech I wrestle regularly with issues that have nothing to do with technical feasibility. Although assistive tech drones and semi-autonomous wheeled robots likely could be developed now, developing those faces the same barriers as developing other sorts of assistive tech.

1. It's hard to find investors willing to put money into assistive tech. Assistive tech doesn't promise the same kind of growth that other tech does. It's not uncommon for someone to publicly support accessibility and assistive tech, but then to take no action.
2. Grants aren't necessarily a good option. Applying for a grant is a full-time job--someone working on a grant application isn't doing any engineering. Once the grant money is gone, a company needs to make sufficient revenue to sustain development. Also, many grants are unavailable to for-profit companies, although for-profit companies are more likely to attract the people with engineering skills necessary to develop new tech.
3. It's VERY hard to reach people scattered across the globe. There are many blind and visually impaired people, but they represent a small percentage of people. It can be very expensive to reach a blind person who has sufficient O&M skills to make good use of certain assistive tech. Advertising channels are designed for sighted people.
4. Open source isn't necessarily a good option. Long story there, but in general if setup and installation requires a great deal of tech savvy, then useful solutions won't be available to many people.
5. If technology is particularly promising, then a large company with lots of resources could swoop in and copy what a small company has developed. The large company may not pay the same attention to detail, or offer the same support, but having lots of money sure helps with outreach.

That was all too much info, perhaps, but maybe someone reading this some day will find solutions and workarounds. Good luck to them!