Autonomous driving wheelchair

Research and development of autonomous driving is one of the hot topics in the Tech industry. But what if it applies to a wheelchair?
WHILL, the startup who developing the next generation electric wheelchair announced the prototype of the wheelchair's automatic driving system at CES.

This is a technology assuming wheelchair sharing in airports, commercial facilities or Tourist spots. Their wheelchairs have the function of automatically returning to the standby place from the place where the users have dropped. Stereo cameras are mounted on the left and right arms of the wheelchair one by one, so they recognize the surrounding scenery with a wide viewing angle. In addition, a sensor is mounted behind this and prepares for a collision accident when moving backward. And, check the information on the surrounding conditions detected by the sensors against the map information collected in advance, and automatically run safely. Furthermore, it has a communication line, and administrators can manage the location information of this by unifying, and it is also possible to develop optional applications according to usage scenes.
They are aiming to put this in practical use in 2020 and have already been discussing with several airports and companies.