Autonomous wheelchair: Lidar carries humanistic care

Lidar is an important sensor integrating laser, GPS positioning and inertial measurement device. Its wavelength is mainly located in the near infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum (780nm, 808nm, 850nm,940nm, 1064nm).With the emergence and development of intelligent vehicles, laser radar has attracted much attention. As the "eye" of machines, laser radar has a broader space.

Hyundai Motor Group's open innovation platform Zero1one is planning to test its autonomous wheelchair.The wheelchair is equipped with an automated lidar sensor system designed to improve safety and ease of mobility for people with disabilities.

In fact, in 2018, Lidar technology was used in autonomous wheelchairs in India.At the time, Indian researchers developed the autonomous wheelchair using RPLIDA Lidar, a 360°2D laser scanner kit.In addition to the automatic wheelchair can help people with disabilities to avoiding obstacles on the path, also can create a map of the area around and distinguish between static and dynamic obstacles, and then the data through the application is loaded into the smartphone or tablet, users only need to map the destination point touch screen, automatic wheelchair users can carry to its wants to go to the place.

The autonomous wheelchairs offer more convenience to the disabled than manual wheelchairs, but they are not suitable for indoor use due to their large area of space and are prone to collisions with pedestrians or obstacles when used outdoors.In addition, the high cost of changing the autonomous wheelchair, which can detect obstacles, choose routes and move to selected destinations, ultimately prevents its commercial development and widespread application.

In response, Hyundai Motor Group said it will evaluate the practicality, technology and disadvantages of the self-driving wheelchair, and support ZER01ONE to improve the technology, so that the lidar autonomous wheelchair toward the direction of low-cost and small.We believe that the continuous maturity of laser technology has added impetus to the continuous improvement of the automatic wheelchair, which provides more convenience for people with mobility difficulties and more disabled people's lives are more secure.