Muscat: A team of Omani youths from Sultan Qaboos University’s College of Engineering developed a prototype of a wheelchair with Artificial Intelligence technology to enable better mobility for people with movement disabilities.
This unique wheel chair has an embedded AI device that reads brain signals of the user, analyses them and sends the requests to the computer via Bluetooth to fulfil the needs. This offers better advantages over electric or power wheelchair.
Some of the people with complex movement disorders may not be able to use these wheelchairs because they can't use a joystick for control.
Even the wheelchair mounted with a camera also has its own downsides from over straining of eyes as the user must look at the camera all the time to carry out commands.
The AI wheelchair overcomes these problems as brain signals are converted into commands without the need to use hands or other’s help. The controls are not operated by hand, but by the head and/or feet. The AI software sees to it that involuntary movements of the user are recognised.
These students incorporated artificial intelligence into wheelchairs after studying special needs to be self-reliant and independent by automating tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as speech and voice recognition, visual perception, predictive text functionality, decision-making and performance of a variety of other tasks,
The students are planning to work on the project and make it more user friendly.
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