Other Autonomous “Personal Mobility Vehicles”

Story: One of the challenges my father faced later in life was that he still enjoyed walking, but once he walked out the front door, he couldn’t necessarily find his way back by himself. The basic technology we’re talking about for navigation in Autonomous Vehicles is already present in smartphones – note you can use the camera as a sensor for simple forward navigation. The technology will continue to get smaller and cheaper, and will lead to what I call “Super-Smart Watches”. If my father had a Super-Smart Watch it could have guided him back home, or to the library, or the restaurant. You can imagine extending this to Autonomous Canes for those who need support, and Autonomous Glasses, if those come into fashion. My father also retained his youthful enthusiasms, so you can imagine Autonomous Scooters, Skateboards, and even Hoverboards.

Fortunately, my father maintained his mobility, unlike so many aging seniors and other people. For them, one of the daily challenges they face is going to the toilet. Here is a design of Autonomous Vehicles to help solve this problem. An Autonomous Toileting Vehicle can take the person into the restroom and over the toilet. By backing into the room, the vehicle can maneuver in tight spaces.

This Autonomous Toileting Vehicle has several modifications from an ordinary Autonomous Personal Mobility Vehicle: the structure is open in the back, so it can maneuver over a toilet. The center portion of the seat can be opened, either manually or automatically, to expose the opening to the toilet. The mechanism can open and close the toilet lid and flush the toilet. There is a mechanism for cleaning the user, either a wiping mechanism or a spray similar to a bidet – these already exist. This will lead to new clothing designs, so that the bottom can be easily opened – it won’t be the first time technology has driven fashion. For more information on this challenge, click the "Autonomous Toileting System" label.

One issue my daughter raised is how seniors might adapt to all this new technology. This is certainly a challenge: my father was one of the early users of the revolutionary HP35 handheld calculators, yet a decade later he never connected with the Apple II Plus he purchased because my family was having so much fun with it, and I used for work too. Yet I see lots of other seniors using new technologies as they become easier to use – typically a sign of maturity in the technology. So I view adoption of technology as a challenge to technologists to make the items so useful, and so easy to use, that most people who need them will benefit from them.

This brings up an important point about the designs and devices I’m talking about: these are meant as examples of things that could prove useful, not as detailed designs, or even specific ideas for products.  Rather my intention is to motivate people to build and use devices and systems to help people solve a wide variety of challenges. I’m sure there are better ways to solve the toileting problem than what I described above – so get busy all you out there and build these things that people need. 

For example, Google “stair climbing wheelchairs” to see some examples of interesting designs and progress on this challenging problem. Later I’ll describe some thoughts on how to make such solutions even more useful and inexpensive by separating the stair climbing part from the rest of the Personal Mobility Vehicle so it can be shared among everyone going up a set of stairs.