Lysa Robot Guide Dog

According to the World Blind Union (WBU), about 253 million people in the world have some type of visual impairment, knowing that, of these, only Brazilians are about 6.5 million, according to the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography). and Statistics). ). The guide dog is essential to assist in the locomotion of these people.

Although we are aware of the need to use guide dogs, in Brazil there are only about 150 specimens, which in addition, due to their different training, the cost of one is about US$ 16720.00. The safety provided by it is limited, as there are potholes in the streets, branches in the air and dangers that the guide dog unfortunately cannot ensure that the visually impaired will be unharmed.

In this sense, blind people with rare diseases are twice as difficult to access health, whether physically, such as hospitals or in terms of well-being, such as access to leisure and the outdoors. Most of the time, these people are marginalized from society and end up not having the proper care, despite having rare diseases, because they have neither the conditions nor the autonomy to have access to health care and doctors.

Now, imagine yourself with a rare disease that is difficult to live with, without autonomy to access hospitals safely and without conditions to receive any diagnosis due to lack of access to health, this is the reality of about 6.5 million people only in Brazil.

Lysa, baseada em um cão-guia robô, é uma inovação tecnológica sofisticada, que possui GPS, câmeras que identificam objetos e literalmente conversam com o usuário, tela de sensor que evita obstáculos, sejam buracos ou objetos no ar, como galhos e uma Inteligência Artificial madura que permite o mapeamento de locais através da triangulação. Sua alça tem cerca de um metro de comprimento, para garantir que qualquer possível colisão não chegue ao usuário.

Lysa is portable, weighing about 2.5KG, and can be handled by children from 10 years of age, it traces the path by voice command and has a battery that lasts about 8 (eight) hours, rechargeable. Unlike the traditional guide dog, it has an unlimited life span, guarantees safety, autonomy and consequently social inclusion, in addition to having a cost about 5 times lower.

Our value propositions are the development of assistive technologies, the donation of Lysa units to financially needy people through the support we obtain for our NGO and our goal of reaching millions of people around the world, this because we understand that in addition to diagnostic technologies, it is essential that we bring accessibility to all niches and minorities.

Lysa is aimed at people who are blind or with diseases and disabilities that affect their mobility, it serves people from 10 years of age to people of advanced age, it is developed by the startup Vixsystem of which we are the social side. Our Institute adopts the cause of providing this technological innovation for free to this list of people who are financially needy, our goal is to bring accessibility, so that these people can attend hospitals and have access to doctors alone, independently and in the same way. can lead a normal, more inclusive life.

There are about 253 million people who live in darkness and that our technology can bring a new way of seeing the world for free or at least 5 times cheaper than other ways. It is up to society to evolve and our technology to bring evolution that follows it, we are talking about bringing more accessibility, prevention and mobility, in addition to a percentage of employability and a wide range of applications for blind people to stop being marginalized.

We have a full team of qualified professionals who over the years have increasingly understood the difficulties of users and managed to adapt innovation to each need, among them we would like to highlight some and their experiences that add up and always add to the team and to change thousands of lives.

Joelson Rocha - Engineer specializing in robotics, Master's in Electrical Engineering, Graduation in Mechatronics Engineering, technical course in mechanics from the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Ecnology of Rio Grande do Norte, research and implementation of improvements in robotic systems, covering the areas of high and low level programming of sensors and actuators, as well as the development of mapping algorithms and simultaneous location with and without obstacle avoidance.
Flávia Mattos - Sales Executive, MBA in project management and business management, experience in large companies such as Fedex, DHL Expres, Kaio Gomes - automation engineer, is a researcher and developer at Vixsystem. He works directly with the production and development of the Guide Dog Robot, from researching new technologies, parts and programming, to the final parts of the product, such as assembly, testing and maintenance. Your bond with the company is CLT;

Thiago de Oliveira - control and automation engineer, is a solutions architect at Vixsystem. She works on the Lysa project, where she develops parts, algorithms and new features. Thiago was awarded in several technology and innovation events in which he participated as an exhibitor. Including First Lego League, Brazilian Robotics Olympiad, Knowledge Olympics, Inova Senai and Ifes Serra Engineering Week. Your link to Vixsystem is CLT;
Raquel Vassallo - Post-doctorate in Mobile Robotics from the University of Bristol, England. Raquel has a volunteer contract with Vixsystem. Vixsystem's investors and executives structured the company with a more consistent strategic plan, in addition to assisting in the national and international launch, with exclusive benefits.

O mercado de tecnologia assistiva é um marco para milhões de pessoas que precisam de condições para poder viver com dignidade, seja pela própria inovação ou pelo seu preço. Com base nesse entendimento, voltamos todo o nosso conhecimento para os deficientes visuais, não só para o negócio, mas para a oportunidade de mudar o mundo de alguma forma. De acordo com a União Mundial das Cegas (WBU), é a organização global que representa cerca de 253 milhões de pessoas em todo o mundo que são cegas ou parcialmente cegas. Os membros são organizações de deficientes visuais em 190 países, bem como organizações internacionais que trabalham no campo da deficiência visual. No Brasil, segundo dados do Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), existem atualmente cerca de 6,5 milhões de brasileiros com algum tipo de deficiência visual. Portanto, entende-se a grande necessidade de desenvolver e ampliar tecnologias que facilitem a acessibilidade e, principalmente, os meios de locomoção e inclusão dessas pessoas em espaços públicos e privados.

Technologies must accompany the evolution of society, therefore, our biggest impediment at the moment is this transition of innovation, because, in order to maintain an organization that has great ideals, it is necessary that there are investments, angel donors, incentives and a lot of determination, but for this to be accomplished, we need investments to improve some aspects of the robot, in order to guarantee greater safety to users, this will only be accomplished if we can expand a test team and the production environment, reducing efforts and increasing the desired result. .

Lysa Robot Guide Dog is a pioneering robotics platform in terms of accessibility for the visually impaired to everyday spaces. Its embedded technology allows the mapping of these environments to ensure safe and autonomous locomotion of its users, in addition to allowing access to places where the use of the conventional guide dog would be restricted, being a fully electric product, with a battery that lasts about 8 ( eight) hours of charging. Its technology allows the disabled person to say where they want to go and it will calculate the safest route, in addition to identifying obstacles and informing the user about them, avoiding them and ensuring safety in order to avoid accidents. One of the points that most touched users who have already used it, is the fact that Lysa identifies objects in the air, such as plates and branches, which are usually the biggest generators of accidents, as the conventional guide dog cannot identify them and inform them to the user.

We have developed a robot that costs 1/5 the price of a traditional guide dog, which gives more security and independence, therefore, it generates more opportunities and can be easily implemented in people's lives, through direct purchases or initiatives from other institutions for donations of this kind. innovation.

In Brazil, there are about 6.5 million people who have some type of visual or mobility impairment and do not have the opportunity to access places alone, autonomously and safely, preventing their academic and professional development and their access to health, a fact that directly affects the lives of several marginalized families in society, which are supported by underemployment, derived from a low education and generated by the lack of access by parents, which is passed on to their children in a cycle that follows successively.

This problem is mainly caused by the poor distribution of income in the country and low investment in assistive innovations that generate accessibility and consequently inclusion, in this sense, according to Unicef, 57.3 million adolescents still need to have their rights guaranteed and live on the margins of society, being mostly disabled, who, due to the lack of initiatives like ours, which generate inclusion and accessibility, do not have access to the opportunities that the world brings.

Each unit of the robot that will be deployed has the capacity to serve sectors of commerce, hospitals, orphanages, schools, among others. Bearing this in mind, we made a mapping that started in 2022, where we will place at least 360 units on the market, in 2023 about 2,800 units, in 2024 about 19,000 units, in 2025 about 31,000 units and finally in 2026 about of 42 thousand units. With this, we will already reach 1% of the Brazilian market, between sales and donations, of which we will not be making the biggest change in the world, but we will certainly be changing the world of many people.

Our project is still a pilot and is going to the test phase in the market through freemium, which through tests with about 10 units, 200 more have already been requested for tests in other places, given that it is a low-cost innovation, which brings accessibility and inclusion that, on the one hand, increases the trade audience and, on the other hand, brings more inclusion to the marginalized disabled to the existential minimum, which is health, leisure, quality education, quality employment and more opportunities and possibilities, all in a safe way and autonomous.

Therefore, our methods are based on a satisfaction survey regarding all the above-mentioned items, both for the public directly affected, and for the public that, in a tabulated way, ends up having significant improvements in their lives, and our goal is to achieve a result 95 % positive as a definition of success.

A WBU study states that about 253 million people in the world have some form of visual impairment, most of them in poor countries with poor income distribution. It is important to emphasize that visual impairment is rare in childhood and adolescence, which is the time when human beings develop the most, in this sense, visual impairment in childhood and its consequences have a great impact when calculating the number of years lived. with blindness or low vision, with greater chances of delay in physical, neuropsychomotor, educational, economic and quality of life. Access to health and other existential minimums is definitely scarce for these people, in addition, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are approximately 1.4 million visually impaired children in the world, of which about 90 % live in developing or very poor countries.

Therefore, implementing Lysa in society is, in the short term, to reduce the scarcity of accessibility by children to the existential minimums mentioned above, creating more inclusion for them from childhood to develop into adulthood, and on the other hand, also creating opportunities for people already physically developed. In the long term, evaluations will measure 95% of users' positivity when it comes to increasing access to health, leisure, quality education, quality employment and more opportunities to improve quality of life.

A Lysa é equipada com GPS, tela de sensor, Lidar, Inteligência Artificial madura que permite o mapeamento de ambientes através da triangulação de pontos, dois motores que conduzem suas rodas para orientar efetivamente o usuário evitando acidentes, evitando buracos ou objetos no ar. , como galhos, por exemplo. Seu destino é informado por um comando ativado por voz pelo aplicativo do próprio celular da pessoa que já deve ser adaptado, de modo que a Lysa reconhecerá obstáculos através de suas câmeras usando IA e informará o usuário, desviando e orientando-o através da rota mais segura para o local desejado. Além disso, sua alça tem cerca de um metro de comprimento, para garantir que qualquer possível colisão não atinja diretamente o usuário. Lysa é portátil, pesando cerca de 2,5KG, e pode ser manuseada por crianças a partir de 10 anos de idade, com uma bateria recarregável, que dura cerca de 8 horas e pode ser devolvida para nós após seus 800 ciclos em média, para a data de vencimento. descarte, de forma sustentável, que não emita gases poluentes para o meio ambiente, Lysa é a nova forma de ver o mundo.

We have a wide range of diversity for the development of the project, of which we have professionals from different regions of Brazil and consequently from different cultures, given that we are from a country rich in diverse cultures from all over the world, even so, we have a margin of 30 % of female employees, including our CEO, Neide Sellin.

Our internal ethical policy is always aimed at serving our cause, which is social inclusion through assistive technologies, so everyone has the same opportunities for development and normative salaries depending on their professional levels and not on any other external factor.

In addition, we plead for service to the disabled public and therefore we have visually impaired people on the project development team, who eventually help us deliver quality technology that meets our commitment.

We work with the development of assistive technologies and in parallel with the development of software for companies. For B2B sales in Brazil, we will use our e-commerce website and the direct sales channel: outbound sales, as in records collected from associations, public bids, and private initiatives, such as shopping malls, airports, hospitals, companies who need assistive technologies that help people with disabilities move around, on the other hand, we also chose to raise funds so that we can donate part of our technology through our pararela institution, which is social and non-profit, as well we will be able to reach the poorest people with our technology and in any case indirectly market the aforementioned initiatives.

Estabelecemos metas através dos marcos do mercado de tecnologias assistivas, onde implementaremos nossa inovação com uma tecnologia superior a possíveis concorrentes e preços inferiores aos meios utilizados, onde nosso principal modelo de receita é baseado em vendas online e alianças estratégicas.

Our technology is highly different from the following competitors: OrCam My Eye, OrCam reads objects but does not offer security in mobility. The Lysa robot performs fall and mechanical shock preventive actions; NKS MOTION & CONTROL, there is no product available for sale, although it is in the research phase. Lysa surpasses this version in ergonomics, design and robotics platform; WE WALK CANE, the smart cane has a GPS system, but it does not have an indoor navigation system, it does not map internal environments as Lysa does, nor does it have traction that guides the disabled and the traditional guide dog, It has a high cost, limited life time , does not deviate from holes and aerial objects.

In addition to all these facts that indicate Lysa's pioneering spirit and innovation, according to Coherent Market Insights, the global market for assistive technology will reach US$ 26 billion by 2024 and Zion Market Research goes further with its projections for the sector, estimated to reach US$31 billion in 2024, in addition to an annual growth rate of 7.4%, further demonstrating the great business and social change possibilities of our flagship product.

We reached some agreements with research support institutions that allowed us to make major updates to our project and that still allow for funding for staff and equipment, in addition to receiving some mentorships from national and international competition awards, of which we highlight some of the most important, like FINEP – Edital Finep 06/2020 Assistive Technology, the company achieved second position in the overall ranking. Non-refundable resource in the order of 1.5 million, for the entry of 45 robots on the market; FAPES / Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa e Inovação do Espírito Santo - EDITAL FAPES Nº 01/2020 - INNOVATIVE PROJECTS AND SPIN OFF, grant term signed to raise financial resources in the amount of 275,000 thousand reais for improvements in the development of in-door navigation. FAPESP - PIPE FAPESP - Phase 2 Direct / Call for Proposals (2019). The startup was approved with a full value of 997,000 thousand to improve the navigation system algorithms. In 2020, the company Vixsystem joined the ICT and Technological-Based Business Incubator TecVitória. Currently, the startup is a partner of the National Education and Research Network - RNP, through the Federal University of Espírito Santo, UFES.

Lysa has also received several international awards such as the 100k LATAM Award: Finalist in the CATEGORY LAUNCH category where 5 out of 2000 staturps from Latin America were selected. We were a finalist and received the prize of R$ 100,000.00; Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards 2018: Where Neide was a finalist, and recognized at an event held in Singapore, which aimed to promote women entrepreneurs and their projects with social impact; Shark Tank Brazil: In a Sony Entertainment Television program, the startup Vixsystem received an angel investment from three Brazilian executives with national renown: Cristina Arcangeli, Robson Chiba and Camila Farani. Each of the investors plays a relevant role in projecting Lysa's sales around the world, this is the focus of all investors. This investment involves not only the injection of financial resources, but also intellectual resources, in addition to the addition of networking for the promotion and growth of the business. SLINGSHOT 2021 Singapore: Our Startup was ranked in the world's top 10 for the best innovations, we received an award worth US$50,000.00 for use only in the award city and, finally and most recently, we were winners of the 5th Edition of the Innovation Awards of Fundación Mapfre, in Spain in the prevention and mobility category.