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 Introduction
The CALL Centre originally developed the Smart Wheelchair for children with severe and multiple disabilities who could not use ordinary mobility aids. With the chair, children experience new opportunities for communication, learning, exploration, play and achieve some degree of independent mobility. Find out more about this in the research paper.
The Smart Wheelchair can be driven by single or multiple switches; a scanning direction selector; proportional joystick; and communication aid or laptop computer. Bumpers protect the pilot and the environment - on collision the chair stops and takes avoiding action. A track follower lets the chair follow lines on the floor from room to room or through tight situations like doorways.
The Smart Wheelchair won the Gold Award for Special Educational Needs at the BETT 98 conference and exhibition.
The Smart Wheelchair is available now for purchase, demonstration or loan.
Collision Sensors, Line Follower and Feedback
The basic Smart Wheelchair is based on a commercially available powered wheelchair chassis, controlled using a computer designed and built by the project team. The chairs are intended to be used by children who do not have the physical, perceptual or cognitive abilities to control an ordinary powered mobility aid, and so there are a number of features to protect the user and environment and enhance the activities possible with the chair.
Collision sensors can stop the chair on contact with an obstacle, and if desired reverse and also turn it away from the object. Ultrasonic rangefinders are under development to slow the chair prior to collisions, and to help with negotiating corridors and doorways. A line follower lets the chair follow a track laid along the floor, to help pilots move from room to room or negotiate difficult situations such as doorways. Finally, the chair confirms instructions and reports events back to the user via a speech synthesiser or other feedback technique.
Individualised to the User
It should be emphasised that these technical systems are designed to be complementary to the user: the aim is not to design an autonomous vehicle as this would have little educational or therapeutic value. The control of the chair is seen as a symbiotic partnership between the pilot and the chair itself. Each chair is provided with individual facilities, switches and controls chosen to meet educational and therapeutic aims for the individual child, according to the skills of the user and the nature of the environment.
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