The Autonomous Vehicle (AV) team of the SMART Future Urban Mobility (FM) Interdisciplinary Research Group has scored yet another first with Singapore's first self-driving wheelchair that had been piloted at the Changi General Hospital in September 2016.

The SMART self-driving wheelchair is a product of the collaboration between SMART, MIT and NUS. This 18-month labour of love is an extension of the self-driving scooter that was launched in November 2016.

Prof Daniela Rus, SMART FM Principal Investigator explained that this innovation can help nurses focus more on patient care as they can get relief from logistics work which includes searching for wheelchairs and wheeling patients in the complex hospital network.

"When we visited several retirement communities, we realised that the quality of life is dependent on mobility. We want to make it really easy for people to move around," said Prof Rus who is also the MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Professor.

Catch Zaobao video and Straits Times story. For detailed specifications, see SMART Factsheet (above).