This paper describes and evaluates an intelligent wheelchair, adapted for severely disabled persons with mobility impairement. The wheelchair concept is an assistive device that allows the user to select arbitrary local destinations through a tactile screen interface. The device incorporates an automatic navigation system based on a vision system and knowledge base that drives the wheelchair, a...

A survey and observational study was conducted with 29 people who remain seated in their wheelchair when driving (21) or riding as a front-row passenger (8) in their personal vehicle. Each subject was observed and surveyed in their own personal vehicle that has been modified for use by occupants seated in wheelchairs. Our survey obtained responses on issues related to occupant restraint (seat b...

OBJECTIVES To test the hypotheses that community-dwelling veterans with spinal cord injury (SCI) who receive the Wheelchair Skills Training Program (WSTP) in their own environments significantly improve their manual wheelchair-skills capacity, retain those improvements at one year and improve participation in comparison with an Educational Control (EC) group. METHODS We carried out a randomiz...

Wheelchair mounted upper limb exoskeletons offer an alternative way to support disabled individuals in their activities of daily living (ADL). Key challenges exoskeleton technology include innovative mechanical design and implementation a control method that can assure safe comfortable interaction between the human exoskeleton. In this article, we present four degrees freedom (DOF) wheelchair T...

This study determined and compared wheelchair mobility patterns for older adults during an organized sporting event and within their community. In July 2008, 39 veterans participating in the 28th National Veterans Wheelchair Games (Omaha, Nebraska) completed the study. Of these, 26 were manual wheelchair and 13 were power wheelchair users. We collected wheelchair-related mobility data using whe...

The electric wheelchair for handicapped is used to improve the displacement of disabled persons. An automatic navigation system is needed to ensure greater autonomy and security for the disabled person. Automatic control system is added to a manual control for autonomous displacement. Initial system composed of two DC motors installed at the rear of used electric wheelchair, power module for th...

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a new user-adjustable wheelchair seating system designed to relieve discomfort for long-duration wheelchair users. DESIGN This objective was carried out using the newly developed Tool for Assessing Wheelchair disComfort (TAWC) as the primary outcome measure. Two wheelchair users each tested two different designs and fee...

Large accessible transit vehicles (LATVs, fixed-route intracity buses), generally considered safe, may not be as safe for wheelchair-seated passengers. Transit provider practices vary regarding use of wheelchair tiedown and occupant restraint systems (WTORSs), while recent research suggests high levels of WTORS disuse and misuse. We sought to better understand wheelchair and wheelchair passenge...