Duerstock's Prehensile Technologies receives NSF grant

A Purdue IE professor's startup has received federal funding to further develop an assistive wheelchair technology that allows power wheelchair users an efficient and easy-to-use method to more easily position and remove an iPad and other mobile devices.

Prehensile Technologies has received a STTR Phase I grant from the National Science Foundation worth just over $200,000. The company was co-founded by Bradley Duerstock, PhD, Purdue University associate professor of engineering practice in the School of Industrial Engineering and the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, and Li Hwa Chong, CPA, Purdue alumnus and chief financial officer.

Prehensile Technologies is commercializing RoboDesk, a motorized wheelchair tray that utilizes an arm to deploy or retract a mobile electronic device such as a tablet, without hindering the wheelchair's normal seat functions.

Watch this video about Prehensile Technology's RoboDesk.

Related Link: http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2015/Q4/purdue-startup-commercializing-assistive-wheelchair-technology-receives-200,000-from-nsf.html