Haptic Guided Driving with Seated Self-balancing Personal Transporters for People with Deafblindness

摘要

In this paper, we will present the experiences from our work in progress with a first test drive with a new seated self-balancing personal transporter by an entirely deafblind driver, supported by a guide. Our aim is to help reduce the feeling of isolation and dependency and the restrictions in the range of mobility deafblind people report. Using this personal transporter greatly enlarges the distance a deafblind person can cover in a self-determined way. Being active and moving together constitutes significant, essential social interaction and social participation. It offers a very relaxed atmosphere of independence while fostering a relationship of mutual trust. Within this paper, we describe how it works and also some challenges concerning the deafblind driver's feelings about missing visual information such as the position, the driving direction and the current velocity. These challenges might be solved in the near future by using additional existing or new haptic devices. We are confident that, this way, we could make significantly enlarged environments accessible in a smart way for people with deafblindness as well as for people with additional physical restrictions.