A new innovation from IIT-Madras for the differently abled

S Vishnu Sharmaa, INN/Chennai, @infodeaofficial

There is good news for the differently-abled people from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M). The prestigious educational institution has come with an indigenously designed standing wheelchair.

While the wheelchair has been brought out by IIT-M in association with Phoenix Medical Systems, it enables the differently-abled person requiring a wheelchair to shift from sitting to a standing position and vice-versa in both independently and in a controlled manner.

The wheelchair named ‘Arise’ was launched by Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thaawarchand Gehlot on 5 January at IIT-M.

Arise was designed and developed by the TTK Center for Rehabilitation Research and Device Development (R2D2) at IIT-M which is headed by Professor Sujatha Srinivasan in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Madras.

Union Minister said the work being taken up by R2D2 is very impressive and added that he was looking forwards to the prospects of cooperating with it in the future. Their product (Arise) is very impressing, said Thaawarchand Gehlot.

I have seen a lot of modern technologies in the last five years, but the standing wheelchair appears to be more impressive. ‘I am very happy and impressed and I congratulate IIT Madras and its partners for coming up with such a nice wheelchair, which is multipurpose and beneficial for health also, besides being cost-effective.’

Professor Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT-M said R2D2 was created with a generous endowment from their alumnus Mr. T.T. Jagannathan. This became the research and innovation hub for several affordable assistive technologies, which would otherwise never have been worked upon and delivered. The standing wheelchair ‘Arise’ is one such sterling example, he said.

Arise was designed in three stages. In the first stage, a hand-operated, linkage-based mechanism was developed to achieve the standing functionality.

A proof-of-concept prototype was used to validate the functioning of the standing mechanism. Arise was designed such that the user can actuate it from the sitting position to the standing position and vice versa independently and in a controlled manner.

This can be done using the power of the user’s arms. With optimal one-time fitting, the effort required is no more than that required to propel the wheelchair.
A gas-spring was a key element in reducing the effort expended by the user. This early prototype was tested by able-bodied persons.

Since 2015, with CSR support from TTK Prestige, R2D2 has been involved in research related to human movement, the influence of orthotic and prosthetic devices on human movement and the design and development of mechanisms, products and assistive devices for people with impairments.