Robot Wheelchair

Have you ever seen a person in a wheelchair and secretly felt just a little bit jealous? Well if you haven't before then you will now. The folks over at Hitachi  ave designed a new robot, dubbed Robot for Personal Intelligent Transport System or ROPITS for short, that is designed to help the differently abled to get around in some seriously high tech style.

The bot, which is used in conjunction with a tablet (or a smart phone if you prefer) will allow the end user to trace their path and control the movement with simple gestures. For the most part however the user need only set a destination on the map and then the robot chair will do the rest. It has built in path planning software built in.

The system uses a tri-fold system to ensure that the robot chair does not go into the middle of the street or careen into a neighborhood child. The systems first line of defense is GPS, which is used to determine where the chair and the destination are located. The system then uses a pair of cameras and laser range finders to avoid local obstacles, like pedestrians, signs and the like.

For now the bot is still in testing.

Source: Engadget
Image Source: YouTube