Date: Wednesday, March 20, 2024 - Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Location: Zoom via RESNA Learn
Time: 12:00pm Eastern
Title: Future Travel Opportunities for Wheelchair Users in Automated Vehicles and Aircraft
Speaker: Nichole Orton and Kathleen D. Klinich, PhD
Abstract: This webinar will discuss future travel opportunities for wheelchair users in automated vehicles (AVs) and aircraft. Several research projects have investigated options for independently securing wheelchairs in AVS that involve a Universal Docking Interface Geometry (UDIG), as well as design of occupant protection systems for integrated wheelchair stations. Additional efforts are investigating performance of wheelchairs under the FAA test conditions used to evaluate aircraft seats. Providing an equitable level of safety for wheelchair users in both AVs and aircraft will likely require the use of WC19 wheelchairs, so an overview of WC19 wheelchair features and reimbursement strategies will be provided.
Learning Outcomes:
At the end of session, attendees will be able to:
- Participants will understand why WC19 wheelchairs will be required in future AVs and aircraft.
- Participants will learn about potential strategies for docking wheelchairs independently in AVs.
- Participants will receive an overview of the features of WC19 wheelchairs.
Primary topic area: NEW - New and Emerging Technology
Secondary topic area: AV - Autonomous Vehicles
Presenter Bios:
Nichole Orton
Ms. Orton has 19 years of experience in the field of occupant protection as a researcher at UMTRI, where she is currently a Senior Engineer in Research. She conducts and supervises sled impact evaluation of child restraints, transit wheelchairs, wheelchair securement and occupant restraint systems, and other safety devices to the current federal and industry standards using anthropomorphic test devices (ATDs). She performs biomechanical testing to measure injury responses for military vertical loading conditions as well as reclined postures in vehicles. She has conducted volunteer studies to evaluate automated wheelchair tiedown and restraint system (AWTORS) that could be safely and independently used in an AV by someone using a wheelchair as vehicle seating. Past volunteer studies evaluated effectiveness of occupant protection systems for wheelchair-seated occupants in vans and minivans under previous RERC funding and to evaluate vehicle factors effecting child seat misuse (i.e. installation errors). Ms. Orton is actively involved in national and international working groups for standards on wheelchair transportation safety and child passenger safety.
Kathleen D. Klinich, PhD
Dr. Klinich is a research scientist and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Lead at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. She has 33 years of experience performing research on how to protect occupants in motor-vehicle crashes. She attended Case Western Reserve University, where she earned bachelor's and master's degrees in Mechanical engineering as well as a bachelor's in English. After her first job working at NHTSA's Vehicle Research and Test Center, she came to the University of Michigan to earn her PhD in Mechanical Engineering and stayed to become a member of the research faculty. Since 2010, she has worked on over 45 research projects and has served as principal investigator on 32 of them. Her most recent research efforts have focused on child passenger safety, wheelchair transportation safety issues, autonomous vehicles, and assessing factors contributing to motor-vehicle fatalities.
Completion of the post-event survey and quiz earns 0.1 IACET CEUs.
RESNA has been approved as an Authorized Provider by the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET), 21670 Ridgetop Circle, Suite 170, Sterling, VA 20166: (703) 506-3275