You can not be capable of control it with your mind , but this robotic wheelchair from Sweden’s Luleå University of Technology can still offer something that just a few others can — “sight.” The chair uses a laser sensor to generate a 3D map of its surroundings, that’s then transferred to an on-board haptic robot, allowing the bot to choose up on and navigate its way around any obstacles. A visually impaired student already took the contraption out for a spin and said he felt “safe” while traveling through crowded corridors, comparing the experience to “using a white cane.” Luleå’s engineers, however, still have some fine tuning to do. The laser, as an example, can only recognize objects at a particular height, while ignoring everything above or below its visual field. Researchers also are busy developing a brand new 3D camera for the chair and are hoping to have it ready for commercial use in the next five years. There is a full PR looking ahead to you after the break.Research on an electrical wheelchair that may sense it´s environment and transmit information to someone who’s visually impaired, have been tested at Luleå University of Technology. Daniel Innala Ahlmark, a prospective graduate student inside the research project, and himself visually impaired, dared to make the primary public test
The wheelchair has a joystick for directing and a haptic robot that acts as a virtual white cane. With assistance from a laser scanner a simplified 3D map is created of the wheelchair surroundings. The laser scanner uses Time-of-flight technique. The 3D map is transferred to the haptic robot in order that a visually impaired wheelchair driver can “feel or see” obstacles akin to open doors or oncoming people, and navigate past them.
The “sighted” wheelchair have been developed by Kalevi Hyyppä, a professor at Luleå University of Technology and his research team on the LTU division EISLAB. The opposite members of the research team are prospective Ph.D. student Daniel Innala Ahlmark, assistant professor Håkan Fredriksson and Ph.D. student Fredrik Broström.
- This can be important aids for the visually impaired who’re wheelchair users. Many have already been involved with me and asked in the event that they can come for a test drive, says Kalevi Hyyppä.
The primary test of the “sighted” wheelchair for an audience was completed in a single of the corridors of the dep. of Computer Science, Electrical- and Space Engineering at Luleå University of Technology.
There are several classrooms inside the corridor, because of this students often pass there. If you happen to are visually impaired or blind, it really is quite a changing environment to maneuver in. Daniel Innala Ahlmark, who’s visually impaired, dared to check the wheelchair while explaining how he experienced it – and he did so before the whole local or even national media in Sweden.
- i believe safe once I run it, it’s like using a white cane, he said as he avoided various obstacles along the corridor.
There’s much left in the case of improving the 3D sensor and the haptic robot. The laser beam that sweeps in front of the wheelchair hits only objects that are a undeniable height. It has not the capacity to look things which are higher or below that height. Now the research team plan to develop a 3D camera which could do a whole 3D measurement. Then the sighted wheelchair may be manufactured and used for real. This is able to be possible in approximately five years.
Research at the sighted wheelchair was made with funding from the eu Regional Structural Fund Northern Sweden.
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