The Wheelchair Training System project was presented and an opportunity to create a training program for patients to learn how to use a wheelchair. This is not ordinary training program, our goals are to outfit a wheelchair with multiple sensors and operate training in combination with a Virtual Reality experience.

We have partnered with a local hospital and anticipate that this new system will replace the current system they are using which operates as a simple iPad game that patients play while operating their training wheelchair. The limitations of the existing system is that iPad gameplay is two-dimensional and is unable to capture important three-dimensional aspects of operating a wheelchair. Furthermore, their current sensors operate unreliably.

Thus far, our research student, Toan Thanh Le, has researched what kinds of new sensors we could instead mount on the wheelchair. Our next goals are to develop a VR experience which might be able to scan a local environment up in order to prepare a training environment.

Our research assistant, Matthias Y, has so far evaluated and compared suitable AR and VR technologies and the team has shortlisted a brand and model we might like to try out.

It is still early days for this project, but the coming months hold much excitement and anticipation as our team starts to test out ideas and prove concepts.