Smart Design Solution for Improving Life of People with Locomotion Disabilities

Abstract

Designing intelligent devices that can improve people's quality of life can be a worthwhile task for engineering researchers. Such service for people should start by identifying a problem that reduces the quality of life of a significant number of people and then looking for innovative and ingenious solutions that use the theoretical and technical tools appropriate to the robotic and mechatronic fields leading to a feasible response. The problem faced by this research is the improvement of the mobility of people with disabilities, especially in terms of the limits imposed by architectural barriers. Here the authors show an innovative solution for a wheelchair with a variable structure based on smart fluids that go up / down on stairs or over obstacles without having a vertical balance.