A wheelchair which can automatically move alongside a caregiver

This video presents our ongoing work developing a robotic wheelchair that can move automatically alongside a caregiver. Recently, several robotic/intelligent wheelchairs possessing autonomous functions for reaching a goal and/or user-friendly interfaces have been proposed. Although ideally wheelchair users may wish to go out alone, they are often accompanied by caregivers. Therefore, it is important to consider how to reduce the caregivers´ load and support their activities and facilitate communication between the wheelchair user and caregiver. Moreover, a sociologist pointed out that when a wheelchair user is accompanied by a companion, the latter is inevitably seen as a caregiver [1]. In other words, the equality of the relationship is publicly undermined when the wheelchair is pushed by a companion. Hence, we propose a robotic wheelchair which can move alongside a caregiver or companion, and facilitate easy communication between them and the wheelchair user. However, it is not always desirable for a caregiver to be alongside a wheelchair. For instance, a caregiver may step in front of the wheelchair to open a door, and pedestrians may be encumbered by the wheelchair and companion if they move along side-by-side in a narrow corridor. To cope with these problems, our robotic wheelchair can move alongside a caregiver collaboratively depending on the circumstances. A laser range sensor is employed to track the caregiver and observe the environment around the wheelchair [2]. When obstacles are detected in the wheelchair´s path of motion, it adjusts its position accordingly. In the video we demonstrate these functions of our robotic wheelchair. We are now conducting experiments to confirm the effectiveness of our wheelchair at an elderly care center in Japan.