Developing a Motorized Pediatric Wheelchair: Project Overview

This project focuses on the conceptual design of a motorized pediatric wheelchair, aiming to create an affordable and accessible mobility solution for children in developing countries. The assignment outlines the project's background, emphasizing the need for such devices and the challenges in making them available. It details the project's aims, which include developing a design that can be manufactured and repaired in a developing country, and the key technical challenges, such as ensuring child safety, managing costs, and achieving modularity. The project scope is to develop a conceptual design, considering key stakeholders, including children with disabilities and their families, and potential risks like injury and litigation. The project emphasizes modular design to address the complexity vs. cost tradeoff and the need to avoid patent infringements. Overall, the project seeks to provide a practical and safe mobility solution for children with disabilities, particularly in regions where access to such technology is limited.

Project Background
Motorised Pediatric Wheelchairs provide
mobility and autonomy to children of all ages
with disabilities. They are designed to
accommodate growth of a child through their
early ears, and need to be extremely modular
to accommodate a range of disabilities. A
good example of such a chair is the Permobil
Koala (which is pictured alongside)
The provision of a wheelchair of this kind is
life changing for children in a variety of
circumstances. For children missing limbs,
the mobility they offer allows them to do
things for themselves, and facilitates their
participation in the world.
They are also useful, however for children who have conditions such as spinal
muscular atrophy, a genetic condition that leads to muscle atrophy as the child
grows. In this case, the wheelchair and its accessories can aid a child who has
full mobility but is essentially very weak and easily injured.
Whilst these wheelchairs are readily available in the western world, development
costs, intellectual property, patent rights and risk of litigation in the event of an
accident mean that they are very expensive indeed. By consequence, they are
virtually unobtainable in developing countries – in particular those that have been
ravaged by war, where this kind of technology is very extensively appreciated.
The Project Aim
The project aim is to develop a conceptual open design for a modern, effective
motorized pediatric wheelchair that can be manufactured, operated and repaired
in a developing country that has a basic mechatronic systems manufacturing
capability.
Technical Challenges
The key technical challenge in this project relates to the aim of keeping the child
safe at all times, whilst ensuring that he or she has the maximum mobility and

strength possible. This aim is at odds with the desire to keep the system
affordable. Technical complexity will add to cost, whilst an inability to prove the
system is unconditionally safe will lead to higher insurance costs for the
manufacturer.
One way to combat the complexity vs. cost tradeoff is to make the design
extremely modular, but achieving the optimal level of modularity will be a
technical challenge.
A key technical challenges relates to the need to avoid patents wherever
possible
Project scope
The scope of the project is to develop a conceptual design for a motorized
pediatric wheelchair that can be manufactured and operated in a developing
country at a lower price point than modern effective chairs that are in use in the
developing world.
Key project stakeholders
The key project stake holders are children with disabilities and their families.
Possible project risks
 Risk of injury to the child who is a user of the chair.
 Risk of injury to persons in the vicinity of the chair being operated by a
child.
 Risk of litigation for the designer and/or manufacturer due to accusation of
patent infringement