Self Docking wheel chair

If you have ever watched a disabled man / women get in or out of avehicle alone, you will understand the need for a self mounting wheelchair. Researchers from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,US, working with a company called Freedom Sciences of Philadelphia,have demonstrated the system using a retrofitted, commerciallyavailable motorized wheelchair and a standard Chrysler minivan. Theresearchers had originally planned to let users dock the emptywheelchair onto the forklift themselves, using the remote control and acamera mounted on the van. But it proved too difficult to position thechair accurately on the lift. Instead they developed an on-boardcomputer that uses a LIDAR (light detecting and ranging) system toposition the chair. It bounces laser light off two reflectors on thearmrests of the chair to track its position and align it with theforklift. Similar laser ranging was used by the un-crewed cargospacecraft Jules Verne when it first docked with the InternationalSpace Station last month. In tests, the system achieved a 97.5% successrate in docking the chair, even when facing complications such as rain,headlights, visible exhaust fumes, or loose gravel under the wheels.

Source: newlaunches.comAdded: 7 May 2008