Robotic Wheelchair Moving with the Caregiver

Abstract

This paper presents a robotic wheelchair that moves with a caregiver. Moving with the caregiver does not only mean following the caregiver. When the caregiver moves forward to push a button to call the elevator or to open the door, the wheelchair waits until the elevator comes or the door is opened. Such actions can be done without any caregiver's intentional commands by setting `non-reactive area' around the wheelchair. We conducted some actual experiments which showed the usefulness of the wheelchair