Intelligent wheelchair has customisable autonomy levels

The UK involvement, through Kent University, is designing a wheelchair with customisable levels of autonomy as well as devising solutions to prevent signal interference in an increasingly wireless healthcare environment.

There have been numerous previous attempts to develop autonomous wheelchairs, notably by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2008; however, they have found little real-world commercial success.

‘We want the system to be put in a new environment and learn about its surroundings as well as be able to map itself in a known environment,’ said Dr Gareth Howells of Kent.

‘If you look at the MIT stuff, it’s not that good at dealing with a large number of dynamic obstacles in its environment. If there are people rushing around in front of it, it’ll come to a stop because it can’t see a clear path — you need to be rather more assertive.’

Eschewing visual cameras due to privacy concerns, the team has opted for infrared, ultrasound and laser rangefinder sensors for navigation.