Teams Challenged to Make Travel Easier for Wheelchair Users

An automatic vehicle delivered by tractor-trailer to UC Merced recently will be the focus of a two-year effort to improve travel options for people with disabilities.

The wheelchair-accessible, all-electric General Motors Cruise Origin is the focus of the Civic Progress Challenge, a student design competition developed by the car maker and SAE International, a nonprofit organization that develops and publishes standards used for the aerospace, automotive and commercial-vehicle industries

Currently, using public transportation like a van or SUV can be difficult for a wheelchair user, said Ross Greer, a computer science and engineering professor at UC Merced who is among the faculty leading the program.

"There are four straps that have to be fastened to secure the wheelchair," Greer said. That means even if the service is driverless, such as Waymo or Zoox, the passenger still needs another person there to manage the straps.

Teams of students will work on ways to automate the system to remove that hurdle and give the traveler more autonomy.

"We are developing automatic securement systems so users can just seamlessly start the ride," Greer said.

According to the Civic Progress website, the challenge is designed to provide hands-on design and engineering. Teams will develop solutions informed by industry expertise and direct community insights. The program emphasizes innovation, accessibility and sustainable mobility while preparing students for real-world engineering challenges.

The program is designed to advance inclusive mobility and develop a workforce ready to tackle current and future problems.

Twelve universities across the country are taking part in the challenge, including two other University of California campuses. The tractor-trailer dropped off a vehicle at Davis before stopping at Merced en route to Riverside.

At Merced, Greer is joined by computer science and engineering professors Ahmed Sabbir Arif and Santosh Chandrasekhar, mechanical and engineering professors Ricardo Pinto de Castro and Marcus Lee and management of complex systems professor Spencer Castro.

They are leading a group of more than 35 undergraduate and graduate students, including teams from the university's I2G, or Innovate 2 Grow, capstone program for engineering majors. Interns from the UCOP Student Success Internship program and Undergraduate Research Opportunities Center Dream Success Initiative Grant program also will work on the project.

Its success hinges on principles of universal design, which calls for products to be available to use by anybody, regardless of age or ability. Students are developing their technology with the motto "Nothing About Us Without Us," seeking and integrating feedback from wheelchair users as community co-designers.

"Wheelchair accessibility cannot be an afterthought bolted onto a finished vehicle. It has to shape the architecture from the start," said Mandi Damman, executive engineer, autonomous and electric vehicles at General Motors. "The Civic Progress Challenge invites students to reimagine how we design space, hardware and interfaces around wheelchair users' needs, so that entering, securing, and traveling in a vehicle becomes easier, safer and more intuitive. That's the kind of thinking that will raise the bar for accessible mobility across the industry."

Other institutions competing in the challenge are: Clemson University, Illinois Institute of Technology, Minnesota North College, North Carolina A&T State University, Oakland University, Purdue University, The University of Alabama, The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Virginia Commonwealth University.

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