Voice-controlled motorized wheelchair with sensors and displays

A motorized wheelchair for a user with severely limited mobility and with auditory and/or visual deficits comprising:

• sensing means mounted on the wheelchair for detecting obstacles and generating an output signal indicating a distance, a size and a direction of a detected obstacle;
• a first computer responsive to the output signal of the sensing means for processing the signal to generate visual and auditory displays;
• a visual and auditory display device responsive to the first computer for providing the user with a warning, the distance size, and direction of an obstacle;
• a microphone mounted on the wheelchair for generating signals in response to the user's voice commands based on signals from the visual and auditory display device;
• and
• a second computer responsive to the microphone generated signals for processing the signals using a speech recognition program, the second computer generating output control signals to the wheelchair in response to recognized commands from the user.