Possible Personal Mobility Vehicles

Imagine that you could sit in your favorite chair and have your Personal Mobility Vehicle take you anywhere you want to go. Imagine a Personal Mobility Vehicle that comes and goes when and where you tell it, coordinates with other Personal Mobility Vehicles, and navigates with ease. Imagine that it’s safe, affordable, and already exists. Sound impossibly far in the future?

Kiva Systems has already automated warehouses with whole fleets of suitcase-sized vehicles that are all networked together. They pick up a set of shelves of the correct goods and bring them to a person to pack. Then they take the shelves back to storage. Better yet, they manage the shelf locations so the most frequently accessed items are nearby, and the less used ones are farther away. Watch the Kiva Systems videos to see the amazing coordinated efforts of a fleet of such vehicles.

What does that have to do with Personal Mobility you ask. Why couldn’t the Kiva vehicle pick up your chair instead of the shelves? Why couldn’t it navigate around your home, your neighborhood, and wherever you want to go? Now imagine yourself, or your friends, moving where you want to go.

You could go to dinner with your friends. You could even “walk” with them to continue in their company even when you can’t walk yourself. You could go to the library, to the store, and anywhere you want to go.

You may be thinking: “that’s fine within your home, your building, or even on your campus, such as Charlestown, but what about the rest of the world?” Excellent question, and I will describe my ideas for that soon, but first let’s look at feasibility and cost.

Wanting to Walk

My father loved to walk. I especially remember walking through the woods on our camping vacations. At Charlestown we walked on the many paths outside in clear weather. Or we walked for a mile inside, without doubling back. Pop greeted people along the way, often small groups walking together – Charlestown is great for that.  

As Nancy’s Parkinson’s advanced, she didn’t want to walk much, so she didn’t get out as much. So  Pop didn’t walk as often either when I wasn’t there. Not being able to walk easily is a problem because it’s about ¼ mile to the library, the infirmary, and the pharmacy.

Charlestown has over 3,000 residents so you see all kinds of walking aids: canes, 4-footed canes, walkers of all sorts, wheelchairs, and motorized chairs.  Have you ever tried to drive one of those motorized chairs? 

I had a friend at church with MS, so I sometimes moved her vehicle for her – it’s quite a challenge because they are tricky to maneuver. I am always nervous to have these heavy machines driving around my ankles and knees.

Unfortunately, it’s hard for people with different walking abilities to walk together. Thus people who have walked together for years, suddenly have to stop because one of them can no longer keep pace with the others.

What we need is a solution that allows everyone to move around easily, inexpensively, and safely. I believe there are already thousands of vehicles in production and already running, but they are moving packages, not people. I’ll describe these in the next post.