Just grin to move your wheelchair

The technology can be used by people with tetraplegia, stroke victims and patients with other conditions that make fine hand movements impossible. Photo: AFP

The wheelchair is still considered experimental and expensive, but a project recently approved by FAPESP’s Innovative Research in Small Business (PIPE) programme aims to adapt the technology to make it more affordable and marketable in Brazil within two years.

“We want to make sure the end-product costs no more than twice as much as an ordinary motorised wheelchair, the kind controlled by a joystick, which currently costs about US$2,000 (RM8,000) said Eleri Cardozo, a professor at the University of Campinas’s School of Electrical & Computer Engineering in São Paulo (FEEC-UNICAMP).