SUAS

What it does

SUAS - Before boarding, your wheelchair is equipped with a small lock. Any plane supporting SUAS allows you to board and fly in your own chair. No more damage to custom equipment. No more discomfort or humiliation – just the freedom to travel independently.

Your inspiration

While considering my final year project, a friend shared an experience of flying with his mother who uses a wheelchair. The ordeal left him angry and his mother has not flown since. Researching further I found that this was a common experience for people with reduced mobility With 65m wheelchair users worldwide, 500k of them used air transport last year. Even with regulation it seems air travel is not designed to be inclusive. Wheelchair users must give up their ‘legs’ at the gate, depending on over-worked staff and using equipment that’s not always suitable. On landing the “legs” are returned and often broken. A problem waiting to be solved

How it works

SUAS consists of two parts, the lock on the wheelchair and the redesigned seating system. The lock is a tool steel part that attaches to the rigidizer bar situated on the back of all rigid manual wheelchairs. The newly designed seating system is a plane seat that can be set up in two ways – a traditional seat or a wheelchair space. There is a small stainless steel and aluminium lock inside the frame of the seat that automatically locks into either the traditional seats or the SUAS lock. The frame is designed so that any sized wheelchair can fit over it and lock into the space. The SUAS system is equipped with a turbulence control module which uses a pendulum to trigger the adjustable arm to tighten, keeping the wheelchair or the seats in place. The device parts are kept to a minimum to ensure reliability, as being used for transport can be unforgiving on equipment. This is how SUAS confidently provides independent air travel.

Design process

Research I reviewed FAA, US and EU regulations on flying as a person of reduced mobility to understand how the process is meant to work. Vlogs and surveys on the experience of flying as a wheelchair user assisted my understanding of the issues. Interviews were conducted with wheelchair users to understand specific problems and how they felt at specific points in the air travel process. User observations were developed into needs statements which were then filtered. The filtered statements were themed and compared to find overlapping themes. Through this process I found problem hotspots and was able to create a design guide. Design & Development Ideation was performed along with advice from various stakeholders and a concept was chosen to be developed further. With engineering consults, the SUAS lock was developed and proven to hold the weight needed. Wizard of oz testing and prototyping was then used to create the space for the wheelchair and the lock. The airplane seat frame was adjusted to be compatible with any manual wheelchair and with many iterations the lock was implemented into the frame design using SolidWorks.

How it is different

SUAS is a user-driven design. It is geared specifically toward solving the problems that became evident from the research. No product is currently in place to enable wheelchair users travel with their custom equipment. SUAS can be implemented in the most commonly used aircrafts, e.g. the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320, with no alteration to the plane structure.

Future plans

Being an aviation product SUAS needs to fit many requirements to be acceptable for the market. Developing further towards the FAA standards is important. I see the opportunity for the locking system to be used on many modes of transport e.g. buses, trains and cars. This means that wheelchair users could independently lock into any mode of transportation using the same system. Furthermore, I see the uptake of SUAS driving wheelchair design to adopt a common mounting point on the back of the chair, meaning SUAS would work with powered and manual wheelchairs, offering the opportunity to reduce the number of moving parts in the current system.

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