Perceptual Attention Aspects of The UT Intelligent Wheelchair Project

This paper describes the overall design of hardware and software components of the Intelligent Wheelchair, with an emphasis on the role of perception and attention in the different components. With the exception of some of the hardware and vision components, most of this paper describes systems and modules that have yet to be implemented. The goal of the Project is to enable a physically-handicapped person to navigate a campus area, both inside and outside of buildings, while performing minimal control of the wheelchair. Given a destination, the wheelchair should plan routes, avoid obstacles, and overcome unexpected barriers. This is a fairly ambitious task; Section 6 describes two initial test scenarios which provide easier, but still complex, tasks to accomplish.