A student from Lahore University of Management and Sciences (LUMS), currently enrolled in the MS Electrical Engineering program, Faaiz Arbab, has developed Pakistan’s first voice operated wheelchair.
He has named it as “GOBEE”. He developed this wheelchair in collaboration with the National Incubation Center (NIC) Lahore and AYEco.
GOBEE was first discovered last year and awarded the Best Consumer Product Design Award 2018 by National Design Awards (NDA) Pakistan. This is the upgraded version of the previous one with more advanced technology and comfortable seating.
PTI MNA Asad Umar tweeted to praise the efforts of Arbab. He wrote, “This is just the kind of work that needs to be projected”. He also shared the video of the wheelchair with Arbab and his team.
This is not only waterproof and anti-rusting wheel chair but also has the facility of combine rim wheels with a sofa seat. Main purpose of manufacturing this is to help disabled people with technology.
The voice operated wheelchair has many features including Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and remote control with the range of over 100 feet.The advanced version also has long life battery power with two batteries of 18Ah each with the drive power up to 40 km per charge, Bright LED lights for active maneuvering at night and emergency stop and call button.
Faaiz Arbab is also the founder of Ayub Yaqoob Engineering Company (AYEco) and has already started introducing GOBEE in the Pakistani market. In the future, the product may also be exported after approval from International Health Regulations (IHR) which is a division of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Faaiz Arbab shared his views with the press that “There are different types of wheelchairs available in the market, but my idea is that I had was to make sure that the person using GOBEE would be completely independent in real-time. There are no wheelchairs available in the current market that make a user completely independent.”