Electro Echo Gram is what this modern wonder uses to navigate a wheelchair. A person can control the wheelchair he / she occupies using mind.
Dawn Taylor, an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering says ‘ You cannot use EEG to control precise operations like piano playing or a robotic arm, but can surely be used to control movements like turning right left or to stop a wheelchair. This is a third party opinion and this professor is not involved in this project.

This project is developed by the Spanish scientists. Jaview Minguez, a researcher involved in the project says that they are planning to use non inclusive devices to record the rhythms from the surface of the skull. Using 2 800 MHz Intel computers that scientists plan to combine the thought and the mapping software to execute more complex commands like “go to bathroom” etc.

The sensors mounted on the wheelchair will take care of obstacle detection and environmental changes.

Autonomous Motion Generation for Robotic Wheelchairs
Wheelchair is a differential vehicle and the system uses a main sensor that is plannar range laser.

Recently a video was released as a precursor to the project in development.

Objective of the test

Reach a target location out of the office
No prior information about the area
The actual test takes into account 3 specific
conditions :

1. Getting out of a U shaped obstacle area, where there is only a one way out.

2. Rapid reaction to sudden changes

3. maneuver in Constrained spaces.

The wheelchair and the system passes all three conditions successfully.

The system in the layman terms uses the following technology

The sensors creates a 3D local model of the area that comes in the path, Then planning is done with the information collected. Finally obstacle avoidance is performed according to the plan developed.

For the next condition of ‘rapid reaction to sudden changes’, the video shows how the wheelchair negotiates a chair pushed in the path of the wheelchair.

For the last condition, the system uses a “divide and rule” method to maneuver the wheelchair through a narrow doorway.

Watch the video where it all explained. An excellent system. However it is not specific if the wheelchair will recognize pits, stairs etc. With ever growing technology this too could be achieved in the future.

TAG: Autonomous Motion Generation for Robotic Wheelchairs, Disability Products