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Professor at UMinho coordinates project for intelligent wheelchair
Technology is controlled by head movements, voice commands, facial expressions and thoughts.
Professor Luís Paulo Reis, from the School of Engineering of the University of Minho (EEUM), is coordinating a national robotics project whose goal is to develop a wheelchair that can be controlled by head or body movements, voice commands, facial expressions and even by thoughts. The technology, tested in patients suffering from cerebral palsy, makes it possible to avoid obstacles, plan tasks and communicate with devices. The project has now been awarded for the fifth time, this time with a best paper award at the International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions.
The paper, entitled “IntellWheels: Intelligent Wheelchair with Multimodal Interface”, has already been chosen by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology as a model project. “The main idea behind it was creating an intelligent low-cost ergonomic wheelchair that could be controlled by a flexible multimodal interface”, explains Luís Paulo Reis from the Department of Information Systems at EEUM. “The users will be able to choose between several command options and even combine them. The options available are voice commands, head movements or the brain computer interface, which will make it possible for the chair to be moved through thoughts”, he adds.
The project has already been awarded five times
The project is supported by the Portuguese universities of Minho, Porto and Aveiro, by the Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science Laboratory, by the Algoritmi Centre at UMinho, by INESC TEC, by the Institute of Electronics and Telematics Engineering of Aveiro, by the School of Health Technology in Porto and by the Cerebral Palsy Association in Porto. The “IntellWheels” has already been awarded five times by several national and international entities. The last award was given to the paper “Manual, Automatic and Shared Methods for Controlling an Intelligent Wheelchair: Adaptation to Cerebral Palsy Users”, written by Brígida Mónica Faria, Luís Paulo Reis and Nuno Lau. The winning authors have recently received the award at an international conference, which took place as part of the 13th National Robotics Festival.
The future of robotics
The researcher believes that in two decades there will not be much difference between humans and robots when it comes to intelligence and the capacity to perform complex tasks. “The robots will be our partners. They may not be humanoid robots, but they will be working along with us, in teams of humans and robots, to solve common problems or bigger challenges, namely when it comes to exploring oceans and others planets”, he stresses.
Luís Paulo Reis is 42 years old and lives in Porto. He completed his degree, master’s degree and PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Porto, where he was the best student of the class of 1993. He is the director of the master’s degree in Engineering and Information Systems at UMinho, member of the board of the Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science Laboratory, president of the Portuguese Robotics Society and chair of the Iberian Association for Information Systems and Technology. He conducts research in Artificial Intelligence, Simulation, Intelligent Robotics and Information Systems, and has published over 250 papers in journals and international conferences. Other than coordinating over 10 projects, Luís Paulo Reis has already supervised 90 PhD and MSc theses. Throughout his career, the professor has already won 40 scientific and educational awards.
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