Improving the mobility of severely disabled

Abstract

A modular mobility aid system is presented, which can be attached to most commercial electric wheelchairs to increase the independence and safety of the wheelchair user. The system consists of falling avoidance, obstacle avoidance, and beaconless navigation functions. Experiences from an evaluation period are presented. Also an idea is presented to combine map information to environmental perceptions in order to provide the wheelchair user a better awareness of his/her whereabouts. The navigation system can also be applied to different mobile robot applications. 1.