Abschlussarbeiten, Bachelor- und Masterarbeiten

22.01.2026, Abschlussarbeiten, Bachelor- und Masterarbeiten

The Human-Centered Computing and Extended Reality Lab of the Professorship for Machine Intelligence in Orthopedics seeks applicants for Bachelor/Master Thesis for the Summer Semester 2025.

Project Description

Healthcare systems are facing a critical shortage of personnel, and available resources are being stretched thin by also performing a substantial amount of trivial yet necessary tasks, such as guiding/accompanying patients from one department of treatment to the next within the hospital.

Mobile robots offer a potential solution to reduce the workload of healthcare workers by automating non-safety-critical tasks, such as assisting patients in navigating to the next department without a hospital employee/caretaker. With autonomous navigation and obstacle avoidance reaching maturity, and the field of human-robot interaction gaining greater value in a healthcare environment, autonomous robotic companions are beginning to meet the safety requirements for deployment in real-world hospital use cases.

In this project, the student will develop a novel method for patients to interact with a quadruped robotic companion. This shall enable the quadruped to successfully guide the patient from one station to their destination within the hospital. As such, the student’s job will include integrating a handheld controller solution into the companion system that allows the patient to call for help, make the robot draw the patient's attention to it, and provide the user with the necessary directional cues to navigate through the environment.

To this end, the physical interfaces on a Go2W must be utilized to connect the developed solution with the quadruped, allowing the system to directly influence the robot's motion controller and draw from the current motion commands the robot is executing.

Student’s Tasks

Reviewing the state-of-the-art in assistance of elderly patients through a robotic companion as a navigational guide.
Develop a novel approach for patients to meaningfully interact with a quadruped while being guided through possible hospital environments
Integrate the approach into an existing quadruped (Untiree – Go2W)
Benchmark the developed solution against the state-of-the-art

Technical Prerequisites (or motivation to learn)

Good proficiency with ROS/ROS2, C/C++, and Python
Prior knowledge of and experience with quadrupeds
Prior knowledge of embedded controlling and frameworks, such as Arduino
Interest in human-robot-interaction and healthcare applications

Please send your transcript of records, CV and motivation to: Victor Schaack (vic.schaack@tum.de) with CC to hex-thesis.ortho@mh.tum.de

You can find more information and other topics for theses on our website: https://hex-lab.io

Literatur

Cai, S., Ram, A., Gou, Z., Shaikh, M. A. W., Chen, Y.-A., Wan, Y., Hara, K., Zhao, S., & Hsu, D. (2024). Navigating Real-World Challenges: A Quadruped Robot Guiding System for Visually Impaired People in Diverse Environments. In Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1–18). CHI ’24: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642227
Xiao, A., Tong, W., Yang, L., Zeng, J., Li, Z., & Sreenath, K. (2021). Robotic Guide Dog: Leading a Human with Leash-Guided Hybrid Physical Interaction. In 2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (pp. 11470–11476). 2021 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/icra48506.2021.9561786
Chen, Y., Xu, Z., Jian, Z., Tang, G., Yang, L., Xiao, A., Wang, X., & Liang, B. (2023). Quadruped Guidance Robot for the Visually Impaired: A Comfort-Based Approach. In 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (pp. 12078–12084). 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/icra48891.2023.10160854
Hwang, H., Xia, T., Keita, I., Suzuki, K., Biswas, J., Lee, S. I., & Kim, D. (2023). System Configuration and Navigation of a Guide Dog Robot: Toward Animal Guide Dog-Level Guiding Work. In 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (pp. 9778–9784). 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/icra48891.2023.10160573

Kontakt: vic.schaack@tum.de