Students of Atria University come up with eye-controlled wheelchair for paralysed patients

Bengaluru: Atria University team, with student volunteers, has designed an ‘Eye Controlled Wheelchair for Paralysed Patients’. Driven by the commitment to help the physically-challenged, the project offers them a means to connect to the world through mobility, interface to the computer and entertainment, just by using their eye movements.

This unique invention aims to makes the lives of people suffering from quadriplegia, who cannot operate the typical wheelchair available for the disabled. Student volunteers coming from different parts of backgrounds from computer science and electronics have designed the wheelchair with an interdisciplinary approach to help the patients in mobility with pupil detection.

Kaushik Raju, Director, Atria University, lauded this project and said, “It is the University’s mission to promote and cultivate interdisciplinary vitality and project-based learning. For a long time now, our education system has emphasised on marks and rote memorisation rather than actual skills. With global competition picking up everywhere, we are forced to up the quality of manpower. Atria University gives equal importance to vocational training along with imparting education of International standards.”

The wheelchair prototype was designed by a five-student volunteer team working with Atria University—Anil T, Dinakaran P, and Ashok Kumar from Electronics and Communication Department as well as John Karamchand and Surya S from computer science engineering.

Speaking about this project, Dinakaran P, a team member said, “The wheelchair is exclusively controlled by eye and can be used by different users through vibration, illumination change, and user movement. The keys to this flexibility are the camera mounted on the user’s glasses and the use of pupil detection.”