Jason Ford

RoboDesk brings mobile devices closer to their owners

News

Purdue University’s Brad Duerstock has developed RoboDesk, a versatile motorised wheelchair tray that gives people with disabilities easier access to mobile devices such as iPads.

RoboDesk has been designed to give people with disabilities an easy-to-use method of positioning and removing their mobile device without being limited by a table or moving in and out of a chair.

Duerstock, a Purdue University associate professor of engineering practice in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and School of Industrial Engineering, is developing the technology and other assistance technologies in the Purdue Institute for Accessible Science.

‘Our primary goal is to foster independence and improve quality of life, and one area that is a challenge that I’ve had and what I have witnessed other people having is easy access to using mobile devices like iPads and smartphones,’ said Duerstock, director of the Purdue institute and a quadriplegic. ‘Right now wheelchair users, especially those with upper limb mobility limitations, do not have an easy way to place a mobile device in their lap and then retract the device when not in use. The RoboDesk does that.’

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