ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú

Bertie is an incredible 8-year-old boy who loves Harry Potter, David Attenborough, he's really caring to his friends and his family and he has lots of complex needs.

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Bertie is an amazing little chap.

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He's very intelligent and one of the biggest things we're proud of, actually, Heritage is spotting what's in there and bringing it out.

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For Bertie, the most difficult challenge he faces is his independence.

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He has so many things done for him because of his physical, medical needs that we are always looking for different ways in which he can be independent.

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Those who have undiscovered intelligence go through so much frustration and depression.

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Once we have discovered that a young person is cognitively able and does have understanding, technology can play a huge part.

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Any technology that can help us towards that independence and communication increases the happiness levels.

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So far, we've built systems that mount themselves onto powered wheelchairs.

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And the reality is kids and disabled people will tend to have wheelchairs that they are used to.

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And so we're creating new platforms now where you can put any wheelchair onto a platform, and then that platform becomes the intelligent powered mobility device.

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For Bertie, he's really always wanted to have more than one way of moving.

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He's wants to be able to turn and move forwards, and with his restricted mobility, we haven't really found a way of doing that up until now.

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With the project, with the ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú, we've been able to use a Raspberry Pi computer, which stores Bertie's voice.

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And it means that when Bertie Vocalises he's able to move the platform a certain distance.

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That then will give him the option over time to be able to move forwards and turn using his head switch at the same time.

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The system continuously listens to a specific frequency in Bertie's voice.

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Once Bertie produces or generates that voice, the system can identify it and an intelligent programme can interpret it

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into a driving command to operate the powered mobility platform.

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The avoidance system works as it has two different modes where you can stop when an obstacle is detected or avoid which moves away from the obstacle if it's detected.

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The systems benefit the user because they are intelligent systems and they continuously learn about the user's pattern,

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about the driving ability and improve their driving experience.

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When Bertie first used his voice on the platform, I was stood right next to him and he used and it turned towards me and made me jump.

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Bertie thought it was very funny because he nearly ran over his teacher

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and for me it was just really exciting seeing his eyes light up and him knowing that he had done that himself.

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For me it's been very valuable being in partnership with an organisation that is on a similar wavelength.

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It's coming up with something different.

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In other words, having more minds on a problem can look at it from different angles and perspectives.

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It's important for us to have partnerships because to make these things work and make them useful, we all the time have to be having people try them out.

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The excitement when I last saw him driving with with his voice is just wonderful.

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And it takes him so much effort to produce that vocalisation.

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So you can tell how much he's loving it because he's really given it his all.

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For me, to see the systems are being used is just great.

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Just amazing.

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You cannot put a price tag on that.

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Children and young people with complex needs often present we've learned helplessness.

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So learned helplessness is where a child or young person with complex needs switches off from their learning or from their lives

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because so many things are done to them or done for them that they feel like they don't have a voice.

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One of the things we try and focus on in this research is about ability rather than disability.

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So we're looking at trying to enhance their lives by looking at what they can do and then expanding on that and enabling them to do more.

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They're very unique, special people that have a spark of something that we're trying to capture, make use of.

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And parts of my role, I feel, is to try to capture that spark and enable it for them.

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We've got lots of creative ideas of where to take take this.

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What we'd like to do is for the wheelchair system to be able to identify the children and then configure itself.

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This could have global impacts for anyone with disabilities.

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Bertie with the right tech, who knows how far we'll be able to take him.

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It's really exciting to be part of this.

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It gives me more knowledge and experience of what different technology can do that I can then implement with other children, young people across the foundation.

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We've chosen to apply ourselves to this area because of that real change that we see in people, that real improvement in their quality of life

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that might be possible as kids do things for the first time that they've just never been able to do before.

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If you can enable more autonomy and choice-making, independence for disabled people, then we're proud to be part of helping that move forward.

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I love engineering and I love research, but actually applying that in a meaningful way,

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which has an impact on human beings and their lives and their quality of life, is very rewarding.

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The project at the ÍÃ×ÓÏÈÉú supports our ethos.

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It will help change lives effectively.

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It will help those young people that have very complex needs be able to be as independent as possible.