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

If a docking attempt fails, the operator repositions the chair and tries again. If all else fails, they can take over, and keep trying until docking is successful. Freedom Sciences expects to begin selling the system later this year in the US for around $30,000 each.

Via - Medlaunches