Posted by admin in It’s painful to see a visually challenged and physically disabled person struggling to safely steer their wheelchair on busy, crowded streets. Hopefully such sights may soon be a thing of past. A “smart” wheelchair that navigates on its own without human assistance — remote or otherwise — may help them navigate the streets effortlessly.
The “smart” chair, developed at Lehigh University by John Spletzer and his team, creates a detailed image of the environment with the help of LIDAR, the visible-light equivalent of radar. After a computer compares the image to stored maps preserved as a database, the chair can locate where it is on the map and move from one point to another.
The technology involved in the “smart” chair has grown out of an earlier project undertaken by Spletzer to create a robotic vehicle. In 2007, he and his co-researchers converted a Toyota Prius into a driver-less vehicle, “Little Ben,” fitted with laser and camera sensors. “Little Ben” was one among the six robotic cars out of 89 that successfully completed the 57-mile 2007 DARPA Grand Challenge.
Spletzer, director of Lehigh’s VADER (Vision, Assistive Devices, and Experimental Robotics) Laboratory, says they now aim to extend the autonomy of the wheelchair so it can navigate completely in an urban setting and take people wherever they need to go.
Their plan, he says, is also to download Little Ben’s software, adjust it to reduce cost and upload it to the robotic wheelchair. When this is done, the chair will have all the maps and images it needs to interact with its environment.
The “smart” wheelchair will avoid stationery objects like parking meters and electric poles and also “random events” like pedestrians and bicyclists. It will take the physically challenged to their physician’s chamber, the chemists shop, the grocery store etc. In fact, Spletzer and his team further hope to develop this technology for home use as well.
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