16 May 2005
A Monash University robotics expert has built a "smart" semi-automatic wheelchair that can navigate itself around obstacles if its user becomes temporarily incapacitated.
Professor Ray Jarvis with a prototype of the "smart" semi-automatic wheelchair.
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Professor Ray Jarvis, director of the Centre for Intelligent Robotics Research in the Faculty of Engineering, has built a prototype equipped with robotic sensors that assess the driver's condition by detecting whether the chair is avoiding obstacles.
"The robotic technology could gradually and subtly take up the tasks of navigating the chair around obstacles and powering it at a safe speed if it detects that the user is failing to avoid collisions," Professor Jarvis said.
"The onboard sensors would also recognise when the user was sufficiently recovered -- after a rest for instance -- to resume active handling of the wheelchair, and pass control back to them.
"The basic idea is to allow the user maximum freedom of control, and to adjust the extent to which instruments can gracefully assume control when the user is in difficulty, and return control when it is appropriate," he said.
The semi-automatic wheelchair would also include four-wheel drive capability, allowing users to travel over rough terrain such as a beach or bush path.
"The chair would empower disabled people to could go to places and participate in events previously denied to them. I call it the wheelchair for the active disabled," he said.
Professor Jarvis is also working on a futuristic wheelchair that could go wherever its user looks, by using tracking gaze direction technology. "It has been trialed, but this option would drastically increase the basic cost of about $16,000 for a semi-automatic wheelchair," he said.
Professor Jarvis has been seeking industry collaboration to produce a range of prototypes of his high-tech wheelchairs. "They would offer so much freedom that, for many people, their cost would be worth it. If they could be produced in volume, the price would drop anyway," he said.
For further information and to arrange interviews contact Ms Robyn Anns, Monash Media Communications, on +61 3 9905 9317 or 0417 568 781.
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