2012 Volume 21 Pages 65-77
In this paper, we describe the development of electric powered wheelchairs for persons with severe disability who cannot operate the currently available commercialized wheelchairs. One of the important objectives of this development is to ensure that persons with severe disability make effective use of advanced technologies such as voice recognition, image recognition, EMG detection, and stereo vision technologies. Each of these advanced technologies has been incorporated into the human interface and security system of our electric powered wheelchairs and evaluated by actual users in the real-world scenario. Active user participation is important for the successful development of orphan products.
