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Abstract

In order to significantly reduce the number of safety-critical collisions of wheelchair users with objects spread in their environment, a study has been conducted which relates wheelchair user's fine motor abilities with the collisions while driving through a standardized course in a realistic office environment. The conducted inferential statistics demonstrate that especially the participants' aiming capacity can sign significantly predict the collisions occurring while driving through the course. A graphical and qualitative analysis of these effects demonstrates in addition that specific maneuvering tasks influence this relationship and that especially driving next to an object without colliding requires a high level of aiming capacity. The results demonstrate the need to develop a wheelchair system which adapts its assistive functionality to the aiming capacity and the difficulty of the maneuvering task in order to provide as much help as necessary without risking the degradation of the wheelchair user's skills.