The Humanitarian Technology (HuT) Labs, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri Campus, was selected for the IEEE HAC and SIGHT funding of USD 4919 for the project titled “Autonomous Wheelchair with Negative Pressure Isolation Hood (21-COV1-071)“. This is the second project approved and funded by IEEE HAC & SIGHT.

The autonomous wheelchair helps limit the spread of COVID-19 infections in indoor environments via a negative pressure isolation hood. An android device is to be used to operate the wheelchair from a safe distance, minimizing contact with the wheelchair.

The project, proposed by HuT Labs, in collaboration with Dr. Sandeep Veeraraghavan and Dr. Ravi Sankaran from Amrita Hospital, Kochi, is an improvised version of the project titled “Tele-operated wheelchair with negative pressure isolation hood” (20-COV-52)”, approved by IEEE HAC and SIGHT last year. This project was completed and tested successfully at Amrita Hospital.

The team comprised of researchers from HuT Labs and IEEE student members from B. Tech. Electronics and Communication Engineering.

• The researchers from HuT Labs are Sakthiprasad K. M., Sreekanth M. M., Akhil Raj and Anandu R.
• The Semester 6 students are Avinash Hegde, Vijaya Krishna Tejaswi, K. S. Sankardas, Sriram Ghali, Anirudh Babu, Nimmala Chaitanya and Vineeth Prithvi.

The team is led by Dr. Rajesh Kannan Megalingam who heads the HuTs Lab and is an Associate Professor, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri.