A Tele-Presence Wheelchair for Elderly People.

Abstract

This paper presents the architecture and implementation of a tele-presence wheelchair based on tele-presence robot, intelligent wheelchair, and smart pad TIUI technologies. The tele-presence wheelchair is just a commercial electric wheelchair equipped with a tele-presence interaction system. The tele-presence interaction system is an add-on module which consists of three parts: tele-presence, tele-operation imaging, and user interface. The tele-presence part is mounted on the front of the wheelchair for an elderly person to communicate with family members through video and voice. The tele-operation imaging part captures the live video for tele-operation and semi-autonomous navigation. The user interface developed in our lab for a smart pad [12] is the TIUI, which allows an operator to directly touch and push the wheelchair image in the live video of a remote environment as him/her to do in the presence. This paper also discusses the preliminary evaluation of the user experience.