DailyDirt: Advances In Wheelchair Technology

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Wed, May 1st 2013 5:00pm — Michael Ho

There are nearly 6 million people in the US living with some form of paralysis. Despite some controversy, the FDR memorial has a statue of the president sitting in a wheelchair. Wheelchairs have been around for over a hundred years, but technology could improve how they work. Here are just a few examples.

The Tongue Drive System allows users to control their wheelchairs via tongue movements. This prototype requires a "clinical" tongue piercing and a dental retainer, so maybe a camera system would be a nice improvement. [url]
Tek RMD is a robotic mobilization device that might replace a wheelchair and give paraplegics the ability to move around upright. It's not quite a powered exoskeleton, and it can't do stairs, but it's an interesting robotic alternative to a wheelchair (even though it costs a lot more). [url]
A wheelchair from Kyoto University called the Permoveh has omnidirectional wheels, so it can move more freely and turn on a dime. The prototype has a top speed of 3.7 mph and costs over $36,000, but future models are expected to be cheaper. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: omnidirectional wheels, paralysis, prototypes, tongue, ui, wheelchairs

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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 5:25pm

Honda's walking assist robot!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pWvxA4jvbc

This probably won't work for paraplegics, but maybe?
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 7:36pm

Exoskeletons for paralyzed people are happening all over the world.

Israeli Exoskeleton Suit Enables Paralayzed People To Walk
Berkeley Bionics: Introducing eLEGS
Hercule Exoskeleton Receives Arms
Robotic exoskeleton at PERCRO lab (Pisa, Italy)
Rex user - Hayden Allen 1
Ekso Bionics' exoskeleton for paraplegics

Now I would like to see an exoskeleton married to an omnidirectional wheel, so if I stand up I can walk and if I kneel the wheels roll me to wherever I need to go, it could be four or just two wheels.

I also wonder why there is no 2 wheels chairs.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 May 2013 @ 8:18pm

Dean Kamens iBOT wheelchair was in my opinion one of the better ideas out there, the daddy of the Segway.
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The baker, 1 May 2013 @ 10:18pm

Didn't Captain Pike have one of those wheel chairs?
His had the fancy cowling installed though.
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 2 May 2013 @ 12:07am

A Tongue Can Be The Functional Equivalent Of Two Fingers...
...if you split it.
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Yasmine, 2 May 2013 @ 2:45am

Let's hope we limit issuance of these expensive, state-of-the art mobility devices to those people who actually need them. There's not a damned thing wrong with either one of my parents, and both of them are now driving around town in those freaking old geezer scooters, paid for in full by Medicare. About ten years ago, my mother said to me during a Mother's Day buffet brunch, watching as morbidly obese people zoomed around the buffet in their scooters, "Please shoot me in the head, at close range, if you ever see me with one of those things."
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- Anonymous Coward, 3 Dec 2013 @ 5:19pm
  
  Response to: Yasmine on May 2nd, 2013 @ 2:45am
  So do the kind thing ! Or at least disconnect the battery !
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