RnD Projects

Acronym: EQUAL
Project Title: Instrumentation development for an autonomous supermarket cart for people with disabilities
Duration: 36 months (15/06/2017-15/06/2020)

Description: Accessibility is a human right and it literary means the capability of accessing living or working spaces. Accessibility is basic prerequisite for equal participation and active role in the society. For a person with physical disabilities, the day to day shopping in a super market or a shopping mall, apart of being necessary for independent living it is also an opportunity for participation in the social life and consequently in the improvement of hers or his quality of life. From the moment a person with handicap enters the super market or shopping mall the accessibility chain is broken especially in two points. Firstly, the maneuverability of the available shopping carts becomes more difficult while shopping because of the additional goods that are put inside. Secondly the users of wheelchairs cannot reach products at the top shelves. Following national and European guidelines, object of the project is the realization of an end to end solution for the development of new and pioneering services and the support of people with physical disabilities in the super markets.

Objectives: During project EQUAL an innovative system will be build that will allow people with physical disabilities to move and shop inside a super market like people without disabilities. The main innovation of the project will be a motorized shopping cart that will ease the mobility and collection of products from the shelves for people with disabilities.

Site: equal

Acronym: SmartSeatrac

Project Title: Provision for the independent access of disabled persons to the sea with integrated environmental information system.

Description: TOBEA has undertaken the production and distribution of SEATRAC the only device in the world for the autonomous access to the sea of people with disabilities. SEATRAC is protected by published patents in USA and EU. In the present research project, TOBEA intends to create a new enhanced version of SEATRAC utilizing the position of the device on the beach (called smart SEATRAC) in partnership with two research institutions in the Region of Western Greece, the Computer Technology Institute and Press “Diophantus” and Hygiene Laboratory, School of Medicine, University of Patras. Both organizations have significant research activity in order to link the academic effort with the real needs of the market and vulnerable population (disabled, elderly people, children). A set of sensors will be placed on the SEATRAC device, providing useful information for anyone who wants to visit the beach. All information will be accessible on the internet for tourism businesses (accommodations, leisure businesses, etc.), local authorities and citizens for the selection of seaside resorts. The aim is that visitors have at their disposal a real-time dataset that will help them make the best choice for leisure and safety. For the development of functional sensors, innovative technologies, such as Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), will be utilized, in order to provide information about the microbiological analysis of the sea.Most sensor development studies are still in the stage of experimental development on a laboratory scale, and the development of LAMP functional sensor and its transfer to normal conditions has not yet been reported. In addition, smart SEATRAC hopes to be a data gathering system from a variety of sources. Thus, it will be enriched by an aggregation and preprocessing system of data from SEATRAC sensors and subsystems. The data analysis system will consist of three (3) subsystems: (a) Statistical Analysis (b) Visual Analysis and (c) Prediction Based on Computational Models. Finally, the use of drone technology to provide information on the situation on the beach and the availability of parking places for people with disabilities is something that has not been achieved so far.

Site: smartseatrac