At present

the total number of the visually handicapped in the world is large and continues to grow. However

most seeing-eye robots are limited to the specific environment or single spaces and have difficulty adapting to changes in environment. Thus

these robots lack practical value to meet the needs of society. To overcome the space limitation and guide the blind in different environments

this paper proposes an effective method for guiding the blind based on the creation of environmental maps to expand the scope of the environmental adaptation of the seeing-eye robot. First of all

simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is used to create a two-dimensional map of the environment

in which the seeing-eye robot localize itself and simultaneously build an environmental map based on observational features and position estimation;Then

the A heuristic search algorithm is used to plan a global path to find an optimal path without collision in the static map that has been created. The artificial potential field algorithm is then combined to avoid the dynamic obstacles detected by the seeing-eye robot when walking along the global path;Finally

the software control system of the seeing-eye robot is constructed using the robot operating system (ROS) framework so that the functional nodes can communicate with each other to obtain the required data based on certain rules

thereby making the whole control system more orderly and efficient. The experiments were carried out in three typical surroundings

such as an office

a long corridor of big building

and an outdoor rest area. The result of the experiments proved that

compared with other blind methods

the proposed method is applicable to a wider range and more flexible environment and is no longer limited to a single space or specific environment. In the process of creating the map

the feature estimated error is only within the range of 5cm-35cm when the total number of features is 30 and the position estimated error is less than 3m when the walking steps are up to 12000 steps. In planning the path

trajectory error is under 0.4m when the length is up to 120m. By comparison

the proposed method is more practical and superior for guiding the blind. This paper presents a method for guiding the blind applicable to various environments. The corresponding experimental results demonstrate that the map created by the method is consistent with the actual scene and the trajectory of the robot is essentially identical to the planned path in various environments

so its precision is relatively high. The method is generally applicable to indoor and outdoor areas of the daily activities of the visually handicapped and the method is sufficiently flexible to adapt to transformation in the environment. Therefore the method proposed by this paper is more practical and effective for guiding the blind.