A telepresence wheelchair using cellular network infrastructure in outdoor environments.

Mobile wireless network technology has grown rapidly over the past decade with emerging applications and services. Particularly, the fourth generation (4G) cellular network has acted as a bridge between telecommunication technology and daily life applications. In this paper, we present an investigation into a telepresence wheelchair in outdoor environments employing cellular network infrastructure instead of using local wireless networks in indoor environments. Experiments were carried out to demonstrate remote interaction and control from a long distance and across countries. A large amount of communication data based on real network measurements was collected and analyzed to evaluate the system performance. The experimental results show that a wheelchair system can be controlled remotely in real-time with the acceptable round trip time of less than 400 ms. The results reveal the feasibility of using the 4G network for a telepresence wheelchair in healthcare applications.