Ultra-Lightweight Intelligent Wheelchair Receives $1M as Winner of Mobility Unlimited Challenge is Announced
TOKYO, Dec 18, 2020 - (JCN Newswire) - The winner of the three-year Mobility Unlimited Challenge has now been announced with Phoenix Instinct from the UK receiving $1 million to further develop their intelligent ultra-light carbon fiber wheelchair, bring it to market, and ultimately, transform millions of lives in the disability community for the greater good.
The Toyota Mobility Foundation, established by Toyota in 2014, launched the $4 million global challenge back in 2017 in partnership with Nesta Challenges, in a bid to drive innovation in the field of assistive technologies for people with lower-limb paralysis in a demonstration of Toyota s mission of Mobility for All and further vision of producing happiness for all.
BBC News
By Beth Rose
image copyrightMalcolm McCurrach | New Wave Images UK
A Scottish designer has won $1m (£753,000) to fund the manufacture of his innovative smart-wheelchair.
Andrew Slorance, who uses a wheelchair himself, won the Toyota-run global Mobility Unlimited Challenge.
Inventors were invited to submit smart technologies to improve the lives of people with lower-limb paralysis.
The Phoenix I uses smart sensors to detect if the user is leaning forward or backwards and adjusts its centre of gravity to prevent tipping or falling.
image copyrightMalcolm McCurrach | New Wave Images UK
Phoenix Instinct chief executive Mr Slorance said winning was out of this world. incredible .
By Press Association 2021
Andrew Slorance, 51, from Nairn, Scotland, has won the Toyota Mobility Unlimited Challenge with his company Phoenix Instinct, which has designed a revolutionary new wheelchair
A Scottish innovator who vowed to “revolutionise the wheelchair” as a teenager has won one million dollars to make his dream a reality.
Andrew Slorance, 51, from Nairn, Scotland, saw off competition from the US, Japan and Italy to win Toyota’s Mobility Unlimited Challenge with his Phoenix i wheelchair.
The intelligent chair automatically adjusts its centre of gravity to ensure the user can be agile and stable at the same time.
The competition, from the Toyota Mobility Foundation and Nesta Challenges, was launched in 2017 in an effort to encourage innovation in assistive technologies for those with lower-limb paralysis.
A Scottish innovator who vowed to “revolutionise the wheelchair” as a teenager has won one million dollars to make his dream a reality. Andrew Slorance, 51, from Nairn, Scotland, saw off competition from the US, Japan and Italy to win Toyota’s Mobility Unlimited Challenge with his Phoenix i wheelchair. The intelligent chair automatically adjusts its centre of gravity to ensure the user can be agile and stable at the same time. The competition, from the Toyota Mobility Foundation and Nesta Challenges, was launched in 2017 in an effort to encourage innovation in assistive technologies for those with lower-limb paralysis. Efforts from other finalists included a smart wearable simulator that uses artificial intelligence to support muscles at the right time, while exoskeleton technology was exhibited in a number of entries.
The Mobility Unlimited Challenge was
launched three years agoalongside a $4m (£3m) pledge to a range of teams around the world to help change the lives of people with lower-limb paralysis.
As a wheelchair user himself, the Scottish winner of the challenge, Andrew Slorance, 51, was acutely aware of how tipping over backwards was the primary cause of accidents for wheelchair users - and the Phoenix i wheelchair aims to end this. Image: Andrew Slorance (L) invented the new wheelchair with his company
Tipping over happens because the wheelchair has a fixed centre-of-gravity, but the user doesn t, Mr Slorance explained. If the user moves too far out of sync with the fixed position of the wheelchair, they re going to fall over.