[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-84107-en":3,"doc-seo-84107-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},84107,1099514067438,"River Wang","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/100002539ee87300030?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1780474512215547542",8,"Research & Report","Towards Real-World Applications with an Autonomous Powered Wheelchair","Assistive mobility systems for wheelchair users must provide active support, adapt to dynamic environments, and remain intuitive for end users. Conventional powered wheelchairs often offer limited autonomy and weak integration with advanced perception and navigation, especially in complex real-world settings. This work presents a proof-of-concept autonomous powered wheelchair prototype that combines autonomous perception, gesture-based interaction, and navigation on the self-balancing Genny Zero platform.","arXiv :2607 .06383v 1 [ cs .RO] 7 Jul 2026  \nTowards Real-World Applications with an Autonomous Powered Wheelchair  \nSimone Arreghini 1 , Alessandro Giusti 1 , Alex Bordini2 , Enrico Ferrara2 , Giovanni Fulgoni2 , and Antonio Paolillo 1  \n1 Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA), USI-SUPSI,  \nLugano, Switzerland. Email: [name.surname@idsia.ch](name.surname@idsia.ch)  \n[2](2 Genny Factory)[ Genny Factory](2 Genny Factory), [Sant](Sant)’[Antonino](Antonino), [Switzerland](Switzerland). Email: [name.surname@gennyfactory.ch](name.surname@gennyfactory.ch)  \nAbstract. Wheelchair users call for assistive mobility systems that provide active support, adapt to dynamic environments, and are intuitive and user-friendly. However, powered wheelchairs typically still provide limited autonomy and lack effective integration with advanced perception and navigation capabilities, particularly in complex real-world environments. This paper presents a preliminary study toward autonomous powered wheelchairs for real-world assistive mobility. We introduce a proofof-concept prototype that integrates autonomous perception, gesturebased interaction, and navigation on a commercially available self-balancing powered wheelchair. The proposed system builds upon Genny Zero, a commercial self-balancing wheelchair that enables hands-free and intuitive operation through body-weight shifting. To extend its capabilities toward autonomous operation, we integrate an RGB-D camera for human-aware perception and interaction, together with a LiDAR sensor for localization and navigation. We demonstrate the integrated system in two assistive applications: (i) hailing, allowing users to call the wheelchair from a distance; and (ii) people-following, where the wheelchair follows a person using leader-follower strategies, including a constrained indoor navigation example. The results highlight the potential of combining autonomous robotics with assistive mobility platforms, while also showing the feasibility of the proposed integration and identifying the main technical challenges that must be addressed before moving toward user-ready, accessible, and intelligent mobility solutions. A video demonstrating the experimental setup and results is available at:  \n[https://youtu.be/LVAix_Qx7bM](https://youtu.be/LVAix_Qx7bM).  \nKeywords: Assistive robotics · Powered wheelchairs · Human-aware navigation  \n1 Introduction  \nToday, there is a clear and growing demand for assistive mobility solutions that can actively support users [17] . This demand is further driven by aging populations, which require efficient, easy-to-use, and personalized mobility systems [7] .  \n2 S. Arreghini et al.  \nSignificant research efforts have been devoted to improving accessibility and independence for wheelchair users. In this context, powered wheelchairs equipped with autonomous robotic capabilities represent a promising and interesting research direction to address these societal needs.  \nAutonomous mobile robots have reached a high level of technological readiness, with mature applications in industrial logistics and controlled indoor environments [8] . In the domain of assistive mobility, instead, various powered wheelchair systems have been proposed [10, 16, 20]; however, these typically involve only limited levels of autonomy. Overall, existing solutions often fail to effectively integrate advanced autonomous robotics with assistive mobility platforms into a single, user-friendly system. This gap becomes even more pronounced in-thewild scenarios, such as navigation in public and crowded environments, where additional complexities and challenges arise [15, 19] .  \nIn this paper, we present a preliminary study toward a novel autonomous powered wheelchair designed for real-world applications, and demonstrate the potential of our approach as a future assistive mobility system. Our system is built upon the Genny Zero platform, a self-balancing powered wheelchair manufactured by Genn","cbCain2g8LlzXM1d","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCain2g8LlzXM1d","pdf",8101819,1,14,"English","en",105,"# Introduction\n# System and experimental setup\n## Genny Zero platform\n## Integrated perception, interaction, and navigation\n# Assistive applications\n## Hailing\n## People-following\n# System limitations and future work\n# Conclusion","[{\"question\":\"What problem does this paper target in powered wheelchair autonomy?\",\"answer\":\"Powered wheelchairs typically provide limited autonomy and lack strong integration with advanced perception and navigation, especially in complex real-world environments.\"},{\"question\":\"What sensors and interaction capabilities are integrated into the prototype?\",\"answer\":\"The system integrates an RGB-D camera for human-aware perception and a LiDAR sensor for localization and navigation, along with gesture-based interaction and body-weight shifting for hands-free control.\"},{\"question\":\"Which assistive applications are demonstrated in the experiments?\",\"answer\":\"The prototype is demonstrated for hailing (calling the wheelchair from a distance) and people-following using leader-follower strategies, including a constrained indoor navigation example.\"}]",1784192885,35,{"code":4,"msg":30,"data":31},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":32,"title":13,"keywords":33,"description":14,"schema_data":34,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":27},"towards-real-world-applications-with-an-autonomous-powered-wheelchair","",{"@graph":35,"@context":85},[36,53,68],{"@type":37,"itemListElement":38},"BreadcrumbList",[39,43,47,50],{"item":40,"name":41,"@type":42,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":44,"name":45,"@type":42,"position":46},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":42,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":42,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/towards-real-world-applications-with-an-autonomous-powered-wheelchair/84107/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":40,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-17","2026-07-16",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"What problem does this paper target in powered wheelchair autonomy?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"Powered wheelchairs typically provide limited autonomy and lack strong integration with advanced perception and navigation, especially in complex real-world environments.","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"What sensors and interaction capabilities are integrated into the prototype?",{"text":80,"@type":76},"The system integrates an RGB-D camera for human-aware perception and a LiDAR sensor for localization and navigation, along with gesture-based interaction and body-weight shifting for hands-free control.",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"Which assistive applications are demonstrated in the experiments?",{"text":84,"@type":76},"The prototype is demonstrated for hailing (calling the wheelchair from a distance) and people-following using leader-follower strategies, including a constrained indoor navigation 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