SlideFusion: Surrogacy Wheelchair with Implicit Eyegaze Modality Sharing

For mobility-impaired people, the wheelchair is considered as a main navigation and accessibility device. However, due to the inherited design of the chair, the user is restricted to utilize his hand all the time during navigation resulting in a dual impairment. Our proposed system, SlideFusion, expands on previous work of collaborative and assistive technologies for accessibility scenarios. SlideFusion is focused on the remote collaboration of the mobility impaired person, that an operator can remotely access an avatar embedded into the wheelchair. To reduce the physical and cognitive overload on the wheelchair user, we propose the use of eye gaze modality sharing with the remote operator. The eye gaze modality enables implicit interactions that do not require the user to point or verbally say, thus leveraging indirect communication. By using this, not only accessibility can be provided to wheelchair users and their caregivers, but also hearing impairments and pronunciation disorders are applicable.