At CES 2026 in Las Vegas, Singapore-based startup Strutt launched the EV1, a powered personal mobility system that makes use of lidar, cameras, and onboard computing for collision avoidance. In contrast to manually-steered powered wheelchairs, the EV1 assists with navigation in each indoor and out of doors environments—stopping or rerouting itself earlier than a collision can happen.
Strutt describes its strategy as “shared management,” wherein the consumer units route and pace, whereas the system intervenes to keep away from unsafe movement.
“The issue isn’t all the time incapacity,” says Strutt cofounder and CEO Tony Hong. “Generally persons are simply drained. They’ve restricted vitality, and mobility shouldn’t eat it.”
Constructing a mobility platform was not Hong’s authentic ambition. Educated in optics and sensor methods, he beforehand labored in aerospace and robotics. From 2016 to 2019, he led the event of lidar methods for drones at Shenzhen, China-based DJI, a number one producer of client {and professional} drones. Hong then left DJI for a place as an assistant professor at Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen—a college identified for its analysis in robotics, human augmentation, sensors, and rehabilitation engineering.
Nevertheless, he says, demographic developments round him proved laborious to disregard. Populations in Asia, Europe, and North America are growing old quickly. Extra persons are residing longer, with restricted stamina, slower response instances, or stability challenges. So, Hong says he left academia to develop expertise that may assist folks dealing with mobility limitations.
Not a Wheelchair—an EV
EV1 combines two lidar items, two cameras, 10 time-of-flight depth sensors, and 6 ultrasonic sensors. Sensor information feeds into onboard computing that performs object detection and path planning.
“We want accuracy at a couple of centimeters,” Hong says. “In any other case, you’re hitting door frames.”
Utilizing the touchscreen interface, customers can choose a vacation spot throughout the mapped setting. The onboard system calculates a protected route and guides the car at a decreased pace of about 3 miles per hour. The rider can override the route immediately with joystick enter. The system even helps voice instructions, permitting the consumer to direct the EV1 to waypoints saved in its reminiscence.
The consumer can say, for instance, “Go to the fridge,” and it’ll chart a course to the fridge and go there, avoiding obstacles alongside the best way.
The Strutt EV1 places each joystick controls and a lidar-view of the setting in entrance of the system’s consumer. Strutt
Driving EV1 in handbook mode, the rider retains full management, with vibration suggestions warning of close by obstacles. In “copilot” mode, the car prevents direct collisions by stopping earlier than affect. In “copilot plus,” it could steer round obstacles whereas persevering with within the meant route of journey.
“We don’t name it autonomous driving,” Hong says. “The consumer is all the time accountable and might take management immediately.”
Hong says Strutt has additionally stored its customers’ digital privacy in thoughts. All notion, planning, and management computations, he says, happen onboard the system. Sensor information just isn’t transmitted except the consumer chooses to add logs for diagnostics. Digital camera and microphone exercise is visibly indicated, and wireless communications are encrypted. Navigation and obstacle avoidance operate with out cloud connectivity.
“We don’t consider this as a wheelchair,” Hong says. “We consider it as an on a regular basis car.”
Strutt promotes EV1’s use for each out of doors and indoor environments—providing high-precision sensing capabilities to navigate confined areas. Strutt
To make sure that the EV1 may stand up to years of shuttling a consumer forwards and backwards inside their dwelling and round their neighborhood, the Strutt workforce subjected the mobility car to 2 million curler cycles—mechanical simulation testing that permits engineers to estimate how nicely the motors, bearings, suspension, and body will maintain up over time.
The EV1’s 600-watt-hour lithium iron phosphate battery gives 32 kilometers of vary—sufficient for a full day of errands, indoor navigation, and neighborhood journey. A smaller 300-watt-hour model, designed to adjust to airline lithium-battery limits, delivers 16 km. Charging from zero to 80 % takes two hours.
May These EVs Be Lined by Insurance coverage?
The EV1 retails for US $7,500—a worth that would place it outdoors the attain of individuals with out deep pockets. For now, superior sensors and embedded computing hold manufacturing value excessive, whereas insurance reimbursement frameworks for AI-assisted mobility devices rely on the place an individual lives.
“A retail worth of $7,500 raises critical fairness issues,” says Erick Rocha, communications and improvement coordinator on the Los Angeles-based advocacy group Disability Voices United,. “Many mobility system customers within the United States depend on Medicaid,” the federal government insurance coverage program for folks with restricted incomes. “Entry should not be restricted to those that can afford to pay out of pocket.”
Medicaid protection for high-tech mobility units varies extensively by state, and a few states have guidelines that create important obstacles to approval (particularly for non-standard or extra specialised gear).
Even in states that do cowl mobility units, related sorts of hurdles typically present up. Nearly all states require prior approval for powered mobility units, and the method may be time-consuming and documentation-heavy. Many states rigidly outline what “medically essential” means. They might require an in depth prescription describing the options of the mobility system and why the affected person’s wants can’t be met with a less complicated mobility support akin to a walker, cane, or normal handbook wheelchair. Some states’ processes embody a complete in-person examination, documenting how the impairment described by the clinician limits actions of day by day residing akin to toileting, dressing, bathing, or consuming. Even when an individual overcomes these hurdles, a state Medicaid program may deny protection if a tool doesn’t match neatly into current Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System billing codes
“Sensor-assisted methods can enhance security,” Rocha says. “However the query is whether or not a tool really meets the lived, day-to-day realities of individuals with restricted mobility.”
Hong says that Strutt, based in 2023, is betting that falling sensor costs and advances in embedded processing now make business deployment of the EV1 possible.
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