Research on an electric wheelchair that can sense its environment and transmit information to a vision impaired user, has been tested at Luleå University of Technology (LUT), Sweden. Daniel Innala Ahlmark, a prospective graduate student in the research project, who is vision impaired, made the first public test.

The wheelchair has a joystick for steering and a haptic robot that acts as a virtual white cane. With the help of 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 so that a vision impaired wheelchair user can “feel or see” obstacles such as: open doors or oncoming people, and navigate past them. It alerts the wheelchair user to these hazards via vibrating touch feedback, which lets them feel when they need to negotiate the hazards, using the wheelchair’s joystick.

The “sighted” wheelchair has been developed by professor Kalevi Hyyppä, a professor LUT and his research team. The other members of the research team are prospective Ph.D. student Daniel Innala Ahlmark, assistant professor Håkan Fredriksson and Ph.D. student Fredrik Broström. “This may be an important aid for vision impaired people 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.

Daniel Innala Ahlmark, said driving the wheelchair “is like using a white cane.” The chair isn’t quite ready to go into production though, as the researchers say there is room for improvement. The current laser system can only sense objects at a certain height, so they plan to develop a 3D camera system instead, to fully map the surrounding environment.