YuniDetect, an external add-on for wheelchairs, is an upcoming product that can help people in powered wheelchairs live their lives independently and safely without having to rely on family, friends, and caregivers. The add-on, which consists of various sensors, detects objects and people around the person, and steers them away, thus avoiding collision. It is especially helpful for those who don’t have the motor skills to operate a joystick or have slow reaction time with them.
Phuoc Phan, the founder and CEO of YuniDesign, the company behind YuniDetect explains in his own words the motivation behind YuniDesignand how it operates
“As a wheelchair user, its hard to live independently and safe while on a wheelchair. It all started out as a university final project that was required us to use our knowledge to benefit those people in need in the form of assistive technology. Throughout this project, we started to work with a beta-tester and found that this product has a good foundation. The beta-tester had a lot of collisions into objects and/or people, which would either hurt the user, caretakers and damaged property. Seeing how the user would get hurt and lost the feeling of independence and safety, YuniDetect was born.
YuniDetect is a portable system that attaches to a powered wheelchair and can detect an upcoming collision before it happens by stopping or assisting the user. Compared to our competitors, our product can save the user money and time instead of buying a whole new wheelchair with the system integrated within. With over a year of research and testing we were able to create the first external collision detection and avoidance system. Some features the product includes are: allowing the user to keep their current wheelchair that they feel comfortable driving in, sensors that have been placed in multiple positions providing almost a 360 degree feature, allowing the user to turn on and off the detection feature or, adjust the detection distance according to the user’s needs.”
Phuoc’s team has started an Indiegogo fundraiser to convert this prototype into a final product. Visit the Indiegogo page here to learn more about YuniDetect and support it.