A Walk in the Park With Robodog: Navigating Around Pedestrians Using a Spot Robot as a “Guide Dog”

This article explores how visually impaired people (VIP) navigate around (a) stationary and (b) moving people, when guided by the Boston Dynamics’ robotic “dog” its human operator. By focusing on micro-spatial dimensions of mobility while being a mobile robot, paper argues that VIP+robodog+operator is in situ emerging as socio-material assemblage which agency, perception, trust gets distributed this distribution enables accomplishment navigation. The based ethnomethodology multimodal conversation analysis (EMCA) video ethnographic methodology. It contributes to studies human–robot interaction, space culture, co-operative action settings.