wheelchairs

Wheelchair-using British artist Sue Austin can fly... underwater. In a series of live and film events called "Creating the Spectacle," Austin uses a modified wheelchair to move gracefully about in the blue.

Austin is challenging the perception of wheelchairs with her creation. According to BBC News, the wheelchair is fitted with two dive propulsion vehicles to propel it through the water.… Read more

We've seen some impressive Lego creations recently, including a robotic arm and a giant jet engine. We can now add a working motorized wheelchair to the list.

The Lego wheelchair is a prototype capable of moving a nearly 200-pound person around. The wheelchair uses quite a few bits from the Lego Mindstorms line. There are 12 Rotacaster multi-directional wheels providing the rolling.… Read more

Japanese researchers led by Masaharu Komori, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Kyoto University, recently demoed the Permoveh, or Personal Mobility Vehicle, as a prototype next-generation wheelchair.

The Permoveh has four wheels of the same size, and each wheel contains 32 rollers that can rotate in a perpendicular direction to the rim. As the vid below shows, the vehicle can move in any direction when the user operates a hand-held control.

When the user wants to travel forward or back, the wheels alone move; when going sideways, the rollers move. When traveling diagonally, both wheels and rollers move. … Read more

A Web site and app out of Germany applies the wiki approach to maps, enabling users around the world to use the OpenStreetMap platform to rate and comment on the wheelchair accessibility of a wide range of establishments, from bars and shops to underground metro stops.

Called Wheelmap, the free app for iOS devices is in English, German, and Japanese, and while still in beta (version 1.1 adds Japanese), it already includes details on some 30,000 locations, with roughly 300 new user ratings every day.

Wheelmap is the brainchild of Raul Krauthausen, who wanted to create a service … Read more

The Human-Robot Interaction Center at Japan's Saitama University is developing a wheelchair whose camera and laser sensor enable it to track--and follow--the person next to it.

The wheelchair, which is considered standard in all other respects, uses a distance sensor to determine which way the followed person's shoulders are facing so that it can change direction as the leader does.

"[Care] facilities sometimes don't have enough staff, so a single helper has to push two wheelchairs," a Saitama spokesperson says in a news report. "With wheelchairs like this, which can follow automatically, you can … Read more

A new sniff-sensing controller out of Israel may enable the severely paralyzed to navigate wheelchairs, surf the Net, and communicate in writing via controlled inhalations and exhalations.

The system, being developed at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, employs a sensor that fits in a nostril's opening and measures changes in air pressure. A pressure transducer translates this information into electrical signals, which are transmitted to a computer, and its specialized software, via USB connection. Patients on respirators use a passive version of the device that diverts airflow to their nostrils.

Researchers tested the system on 96 healthy volunteers and 10 quadriplegics, with promising results. Some users, the team says, were able to navigate an electric wheelchair around a complex path or play a computer game with nearly the speed and accuracy of a mouse or joystick (watch the video below to see a demonstration of the wheelchair in action).

While the system can be made to work with a variety of sniffs (long or short, strong or shallow), researchers employed a simple sniff code for their tests: A "double sniff in" implied "forward;" a "double sniff out" implied backward; a successive "sniff out then in" implied left; and a successive "sniff in then out" implied right.

Using incremental signals (a "left" command turned the chair left, another "left" command turned it farther left) volunteers navigated wheelchairs indoors and outdoors, with the most complicated maneuvers, executed both by healthy and quadriplegic volunteers, being sharp turns.

The scientists were particularly encouraged by tests conducted on three patients with Locked-In-Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder in which cognitive function remains unimpaired, but all voluntary muscles are paralyzed, except for those that control eye movement. The condition was famously portrayed in the 2007 film "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," which told the true story of a journalist with Locked-In who dictated his memoir through eye blinks alone.

Sniffing is a precise motor skill controlled in part by the soft palate, the flexible divider that moves to direct air in or out through the mouth or nose. Because the soft palate is controlled by nerves that connect to it directly through the braincase, the Weizmann team built on its theory that control over soft palate movement might stay intact even in the most acute cases of paralysis.

Using the sniffing system to control a computer cursor, the Locked-In testers were--after considerable practice--able to communicate with family members, said Noam Sobel, a Weizmann Institute professor of neurobiology who developed the system with electronics engineers Anton Plotkin and Aharon Weissbrod, and research student Lee Sela. "Some wrote poignant messages to their loved ones, sharing with them, for the first time in a very long time, their thoughts and feelings," he said. … Read more

A new pair of robotic legs out of New Zealand lets wheelchair users do the improbable--stand, walk, and even go up and down stairs.

Users transfer themselves from their chair into the Robotic Exoskeleton (Rex) by holding on to Rex's legs. They then strap themselves in and use a hand-controlled joystick and control pad to maneuver the battery-powered mobility-assist device on solid, stable surfaces such as those inside the home or workplace. (Rex is not designed for use on slippery or soft surfaces, or in areas containing debris or small objects such as ice, snow, sand, grass, mud, or … Read more

After spending most of January in East Africa testing his invention, MIT mechanical engineering doctoral candidate Amos Winter has unveiled the Leveraged Freedom Chair, which is something of a desk chair/mountain bike hybrid--"something you can comfortably sit in all day and maneuver around the office, but also use to efficiently commute to and from work."

If you're wondering if you can maneuver in the chair while charging your iPad, this one's not for you. Winter and a team of MIT undergrads and international design collaborators designed the LFC "for people who grew up … Read more

Panasonic has created a robotic bed that can transform into a wheelchair, allowing the elderly or people with disabilities to get up without assistance.

Users can remain in the bed while it turns into a wheelchair. Half of the mattress rises and half lowers while a motorized unit beneath it automatically slides out from the bed.

While in chair mode, the robot can detect people and obstacles and help users avoid collisions, according to Panasonic.

A controller allows for driving and returning to the bed.

The mattress can also help people turn over in bed to prevent bedsores.

The bed'… Read more