Lucknow, Sept. 19 -- Beyond academics, scholars at Dr Shakuntala Misra National Rehabilitation University (DSMNRU) are making strides in innovation. A team from the Pharmacy Department, led by faculty member Ashutosh Pathak, has developed an AI-enabled wheelchair, which has recently been awarded a design patent. Pathak shared that the wheelchair has been designed in such a way that it has been connected with navigation and voice command systems. "This will help in providing better mobility to visually impaired and orthopaedically handicapped persons. The voice sensor will be connected to google maps allowing them to move easily from one place to another. They will also be able to feed the system with places inside their home, office or institution. The device will provide details about things in a distance of 10 metres around the person using it," he added. The idea for inventing an AI-enabled wheelchair evolved after Pathak and their team saw visually-impaired students falling down after getting hit by walls or trees when moving around the university. They chose to make a wheelchair instead of any other vehicle because it is generally distributed among people by the government and other individuals from time to time. "The device has been tested in a laboratory and we are waiting for an approval from the grant commission for grants. We are working on testing the device after which we will be able to bring a more cost-effective AI-enabled wheelchair to the market," said Pathak....