Self-navigating Wheelchair

The boffins at MIT have come up with yet another mechanical wonder – a self-navigating wheelchair that is able to learn about its surroundings thanks to simple voice commands, traveling throughout the map that is conjured from the bowels of its computer brain. This wheelchair is different from the rest as it doesn’t require pre-loaded maps, but learns about its new environment the way a person would, moving around, identifying obstacles as well as important places along the way. Imagine going from room to room and speaking to the wheelchair, saying, “This is my room” or “Nurse’s station”. When outdoors, it will rely on its GPS navigation system to get around, while inside buildings it will use Wi-Fi signals, wide-field cameras and laser rangefinders to move about. If I were this wheelchair, I’d hang out at the nurse’s station, that’s for sure.