# A Telepresence Wheelchair with 360-Degree Vision Using WebRTC
## 1 Introduction  
Assistive technologies have played a vital role in supporting the elderly and people with disabilities. According to the global survey on assistive technologies from the World Health Organization, there will be more than two billion people needing at least one assistive product by 2030 [1]. This information is valuable in providing evidence-based resources that motivate researchers to meet the needs of people with disabilities. Over the last few decades, there have been significant achievements in assistive technology design and development. Apart from traditional wheelchairs, researchers have developed smart wheelchairs to improve the functionalities of the wheelchairs to meet the needs of the disabled people. Examples are an intelligent wheelchair for elderly people [2], smart wheelchairs which can avoid surrounding obstacles [3, 4], and wheelchairs which can be controlled by using brain waves [5, 6]. While the large proportion of previously existing studies about intelligent wheelchairs have primarily focused on developing a wheelchair controlled by a person sitting on it, there has been little research about the flexibility of controlling the mobility of wheelchairs while users are far from the wheelchairs. In recent years, along with the explosive growth of telecommunications technologies, the field of telepresence has attracted very considerable interest in both academic and industrial fields. Telepresence systems involve a combination of mobile robotics, computer, and telecommunication networks, which enable users to be virtually present and to interact in a remote location between the remote user and the local participants. A large proportion of telepresence robots were developed through mobile robot platforms [7; 8]. Apart from telepresence robots for meetings, telepresence robots for education have also been explored [9]. Meanwhile, there has been limited work in telepresence healthcare, such as for remote visiting and assistance [10]. It is also important to highlight that the majority of the telepresence systems have been developed from robot platforms [8; 11], while research on telepresence systems based on wheelchair platforms for mobility aids is still limited. Moreover, the benefit of telepresence as an assistive system for people with disabilities has not been much discussed in the literature. Although smart wheelchair systems currently exist, it is necessary to develop a new generation of smart wheelchairs, namely a telepresence wheelchair to fill this important gap. Developing a telepresence wheelchair as assistive technology would be meaningful and would have great benefits for individuals who have mobility challenges. The telepresence wheelchair is a mobile wheelchair platform which is capable of providing two-way video communication. This system would have potential in a variety of healthcare applications and helpfulness for people with disabilities. One of the important applications is to provide support for independent mobility of the wheelchair user, especially in the scenarios when the wheelchair is located at a distance to the people with disabilities. For instance, people with disabilities are on the bed or somewhere that is far away from the wheelchair, and they might use the telepresence function to move the wheelchair towards their position without the help of caretakers. Thus, it is of practical interest to integrate telepresence function into the wheelchair to provide assistance for people with disabilities. Moreover, the telepresence wheelchair can provide opportunities for social interaction. The people with disabilities, and individuals who have difficulty with mobility, may be restricted in terms of participating in communities in person due to lack of transportation. To aid those populations in reducing these barriers, the telepresence wheelchair can allow disabled people to control the wheelchair to move around in different places to meet people without actually sitting in the wheelchair.