[ExI] Mind controlled wheechair

[ablainey at aol.com]

Hi All,
Following the mind controlled robot arm I have now made a mind controlled electric wheelchair. After a long hard think and baring in mind recent threds about IP rights. I have come to the conclussion that I wont be chasing a patent for the system or any part of it. Hope fully this will mean that peopla who are in need of such a chair will be able to get one sooner rather than later. I have no doubts that patent licenses and limited suppliers would do more harm than good. So I will forgo any financial rewards that may have come from this particular invention. So I am making a point of telling everyone in order to prove public disclosure.
Also with a bit of luck this will serve as a morality lesson for some. ( no one on this list I hasten to add!!)

Anyway, I was surprised at how easy it was to make and to be honest the most difficult thing was getting XP to install on the embedded computer system. grrrrr thanks Bill.
Using a second hand chair the whole thing cost less than £1000 to put together and everything was over the counter consumer parts, although the cost in man hours would run to more than that. Even so, when compared to top of the range electric wheelchairs with line tracking. This is very cheap.

Hopefully people with varying degrees of severe paralysis will be coming to a street near you very soon with chairs under their own control.

For my next trick??? I am open to suggestion.

Alex


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