Telewheelchair: Appending the Intelligence System for Nursing Electric Wheelchair
Telewheelchair is divided into two parts: a wheelchair part and a base station part for operating a wheelchair. We propose a telepresence system which enables us to provide care from a remote place by installing telepresence function in a wheelchair. The caregiver who drives the wheelchair can see environments around the handicapped person through the omnidirectional camera mounted on wheelchair. The caregiver wears HMD to view this image, and hold controller to control wheelchair. In order to safely operation, we employ Human-detection system by using YOLO. If person come close to the wheelchair, system stop wheelchair and display a caution on HMD. To assist operation in narrow area such like corridor, we employ environment recognition using SLAM. In future work, if a plurality of wheelchairs are connected and one operator person can assist with switching among these wheelchairs, the cost of nursing care can be reduced, and more people can receive the nursing care.
Satoshi Hashizume, Kazuki Takazawa, Ippei Suzuki, Ryuichiro Sasaki, Yoshikuni Hashimoto, Yoichi Ochiai
University of Tsukuba, AISIN Seiki Co., Ltd.
