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Companion Following Robotic Wheelchair with Bus Boarding Capabilities

In the last decade, several robotic wheelchairs possessing user-friendly interfaces and/or autonomous functions for reaching a goal have been proposed to meet the needs in aging societies. Moreover, it is vital to consider for the researchers, how to reduce the companion’s load and support their activities like bus boarding and disembarkation. In this paper, we propose an autonomous bus boarding wheelchair system that can give freedom of movement to wheelchair users by following its companion side by side or in front-behind positions and simultaneously scan the environment to move smoothly in outside terrain. Additionally, our bus boarding wheelchair is able to detect buses and bus doors with precise measurements of the doorstep’s height and width to board and disembark the bus. Our experiments show the effectiveness and applicability of our system in moving around urban areas in using community bus services.