Network: Success at last for a smart set of wheels

An award-winning wheelchair design has had many problems getting into production, but now, with a little help from their friends, the makers are ready to roll.

In 1998, an offshoot of the University of Edinburgh won a prestigious education technology award, presented by David Blunkett, for its Smart Wheelchair. One judge described it as "an example of a product leaping beyond the limits of what has previously been thought possible". The award marked the culmination of 10 years' research, and would have appeared to have guaranteed the success of a product that transformed the lives of the most severely disabled. But it turned out that the struggle had only just begun.

Many people who need a powered wheelchair are turned down by the NHS if they can't display the necessary skills to drive it. There are sound reasons for this, mainly the safety of users themselves and those around them. However, the Smart Wheelchair, with its combination of switches, bumpers, scanners, sensors and line-following tools, bridged that gap. In about 30 per cent of cases, users build up their skills to the point that they can be issued with a standard powered wheelchair.

The Smart Chair was developed by the Communication Aids for Language Learning (Call) Centre at the University of Edinburgh. It is designed to allow less able drivers to achieve some independent mobility. Paul Nisbet, of the Call Centre, stresses that it is not a mobile robot - the aim is to maximise users' skills, not to have the chair take over.

The unit was working with children who had severe disabilities and learning difficulties. It had developed switches - to control various devices, such as communication aids, computers and toys. "This is all fine, but not hugely exciting," says Nisbet. "We thought it would be good if you could plug a switch into something that would drive around a bit."

A prototype was built in 1987. With funding from the Scottish Office, the Call Centre built 12 chairs to be road-tested within schools. Nisbet is adamant that this is the best way to bring a product to fruition. He says that the European Union pumps huge amounts of money into projects to develop non-contact, obstacle detection vehicles, but that nothing commercial comes out of them because, invariably, they have spent 18 to 21 months of a two-year project on development, made one and tested it in a lab.

The schools' input was invaluable. It is a long process from delivering the chair to maximising users' skills on it. First, the teacher will sit in the chair to show the child that it is safe and then he or she will sit in the chair with the child and so on. The bumpers have various settings: stop on collision; stop and back off after a collision and turn after collision. The chair can be driven by switches, joysticks, a laptop or scanner. With the latter, users have the option of clicking on a switch until the direction is shown in lights, or can be offered a choice of left or right. Optical sensors on the chair allow the use of a line-following tool. Reflective tape is laid out on the floor and the chair follows it automatically. This is particularly useful for navigating doorways. The chair reports back at all times via a speech synthesiser. This is important to let the user know why an action has been taken. For example, after a collision it may say: "Oops I have hit something. I will back off and try turning."

The Call Centre later joined forces with QED, a wheelchair manufacturer based in Fareham, Hampshire, to go into commercial production. The orders were coming in, but the horizon was soon to darken. On 15 July 1997, an EU directive on the use of medical devices came into force. QED and the Call Centre were aware of it and the chair was taken to GEC Marconi in Edinburgh for testing. It failed emissions tests and, therefore, could not be CE marked. GEC Marconi offered welcome advice on how to modify the chair, but to comply with EU regulations, a risk-analysis report had to be produced. In the case of the Smart Chair because, by definition, the user is more dependant on it, there are greater safety issues to be addressed.

All the while, QED was in a grave financial position. The Smart Chair could not be sold, much to the frustration of those who had ordered one. And while QED fought to solve its problems, the matter of making the chair legal was not a major priority. A German manufacturer expressed interest in buying QED, but after three months of negotiations, it pulled out. Eventually, QED was forced into liquidation, owing the Call Centre a five- figure sum which, coupled with the pounds 12,000 put in by the university, made Nisbet realise that, despite the chair's worthiness, it might not be worth pursuing if it wasn't going to be economically viable.

Academics are often criticised for not getting the results of their research into commercial production, but Nisbet says that the chair could not be allowed to go on draining the university's finances. He has stopped drawing the portion of his salary that came from the Smart Chair earnings and any work he does on it now is carried out in his own time. He approached manufacturers who had expressed an interest in the chair, but to no avail. Then the centre became involved with Swedish and Greek academics to bid for EU funding. Nisbet and a colleague travelled to Brussels to meet a committee, and left feeling that the project was in the bag. There were quibbles, but nothing they felt that couldn't be addressed.

The reasons for the bid being turned down included: "Although the concept of modularity is good, the innovative content of this project is somewhat doubtful because the functionalities are almost all available," and "some questions remain about the potential market, since there is no marketing strategy defined."

Nisbet counters this by saying that, yes, the Smart Wheelchair does already exist, but the aim of that EU project was to transfer the results of research to the marketplace, which is what the Call Centre is trying to do. As to the chair's market potential, one of the partners in the project was Control Dynamics, which manufactures about 50 per cent of the electronics for wheelchairs worldwide.

That EU ruling might have spelled the end of the Smart Chair, were it not for Smile Rehab, a new company in Newbury, Berkshire, formed by Roger Dakin and a business partner. He had worked with QED and, when it folded, he says that he simply could not give up on the project. Smile Rehab has bought out QED's products, and Dakin is keen to get the Smart Chair back on to the market. The chair will soon be going back to GEC Marconi to be retested and the necessary documentation will be produced.

Dakin says the first priority is to fill the orders of those left on QED's books. Both he and Nisbet have plans to develop the chair and to take advantage of new technology, which would allow the company to sell sets of components rather than a complete chair, which costs about pounds 7,000.

"I couldn't bear to see [the chair] not go forward," Dakin says. They need to sell only 10 or so chairs a year to make it viable. There are orders on the books, including a potential customer from the Royal Blind School in Edinburgh. After just half a day, the pupil had grasped the mechanics of the process and the school is so convinced of the benefits that it is already raising funds to buy the boy a chair. Nisbet says there are greater safety issues to be resolved, but if he and Smile Rehab are successful, then the chair will generate enough income to allow them to focus on such individual needs.