Formations for facilitating communication among robotic wheelchair users and companions

To meet the demands of an aging society, researches for intelligent/robotic wheelchairs have been receiving a lot of attention. In elderly care facilities, care workers are required to have a communication with the elderly in order to maintain their both mental and physical health. While this is regarded as important, a conversation with someone on a wheelchair while pushing it from his/her behind in a traditional setting would interfere with their smooth and natural conversation. Based on these concerns we are developing a robotic wheelchair which allows companions and wheelchair users move in a natural formation. This paper reports on an investigation how human behaves when the wheelchair users and their companions communicate while moving together.