With modern communication aids, users of electric powered
wheelchairs can operate a PC and cellphone without human assistance. A new
module is set to transform electric powered wheelchairs into communication
hubs.
Writing text messages and e-mails, surfing the web, making
phone calls – all these things can be a real challenge for people with
disabilities. And that applies all the more to wheelchair users with impaired
motor skills in their hands and to severely disabled people, who are dependent
on communication aids to be able to operate electronic devices without difficulty.
And a new communication aid is just what researchers from the Advanced System
Technology (AST) branch of the Fraunhofer Institute for Optronics, System
Technologies and Image Exploitation IOSB have developed at the request of its
longstanding industrial partner, the medical technology manufacturer Otto Bock
Mobility Solutions GmbH.