Moving in Tandem: Automated Person Pacing for Wheelchair Users

People like to move along with other people as they are going from place to place. For a person who is in a power wheelchair, this can be a difficult task. One must track the person they are accompanying, navigate towards the destination, maneuver around obstacles, and avoid colliding with or inconveniencing the person they are accompanying. This paper discusses a low-cost/low computation method of augmenting a semi-automated wheelchair with the capability to pace another person. This method uses a commercial color tracking system as its basis.