Research on an electric wheelchair that can sense it´s environment and transmit information to a person who is visually impaired, has been tested at Lulea University of Technology.

The wheelchair has a joystick for steering and a haptic robot that acts as a virtual white cane. The “sighted” wheelchair has been developed by Kalevi Hyyppa and his team at the university.

“This may be important aids for the visually impaired who are wheelchair users. Many have already been in touch with me and asked if they can come for a test drive,” says Kalevi Hyyppä.

The first test of the “sighted” wheelchair for an audience was carried out in one of the corridors of the university by Daniel Innala Ahlmark, a student involved in the research project, and himself visually impaired.

There are several classrooms in the corridor, which means that students often pass there.

For those who are visually impaired or blind, it is quite a changing environment to move in. Daniel Innala Ahlmark, who is visually impaired, dared to test the wheelchair. “I feel safe when I run it, it is like using a white cane,” he said as he avoided various obstacles along the corridor.

There is much left when it comes to improving the 3D sensor and the haptic robot. The laser beam that sweeps in front of the wheelchair hits only objects which are a certain height. It has not the capacity to see things that are higher or lower than that height.

How it works

• The robot has a laser scanner that scans the area around the wheelchair and then creates a virtual 3D map.
• The map data is processed by a laptop and then transferred to a haptic robot that lets the driver feel the objects around such as open doors or incoming people in real-time. Allowing the occupant to navigate past them