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# CAREC

Open-source pediatric wheelchair safety, assisted mobility, and autonomous navigation.

## Safer mobility, built openly

CAREC is an open-source engineering project exploring collision warning, assisted safety, caregiver awareness, simulation, and constrained autonomous navigation for pediatric wheelchair users.

{% hint style="danger" %}
**CAREC is a development-stage prototype, not a certified medical device.** Experimental systems must not transport a person without an approved safety process and appropriate professional oversight.
{% endhint %}

<button type="button" class="button primary" data-action="ask" data-icon="gitbook-assistant">Ask about CAREC</button>

## Explore the project

<table data-view="cards"><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th></th><th data-hidden data-card-target data-type="content-ref"></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>🚀</td><td><strong>Start contributing</strong></td><td>Join remotely—even without wheelchair hardware.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>🧊</td><td><strong>Build in simulation</strong></td><td>Develop repeatable robotics scenarios and tests.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>🛡️</td><td><strong>Understand safety</strong></td><td>Review hazards, safe states, overrides, and validation.</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>🗺️</td><td><strong>See the roadmap</strong></td><td>Follow evidence-gated development milestones.</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

## Why CAREC

A wheelchair can move close to walls, furniture, doorframes, and people in less time than a caregiver can react. CAREC investigates an offline, locally processed safety layer with intuitive alerts and a path toward supervised autonomy.

The concept currently includes:

* Manual, assisted, and autonomous operating modes
* Local perception and tiered proximity warnings
* Caregiver notifications
* Simulation-first development for remote volunteers
* Independent override, emergency-stop, and safe-state concepts
* Evidence-based progression from simulation to unoccupied prototypes

All performance numbers in concept material remain targets until independently validated.

## Join the effort

Engineering contributions are welcome across robotics simulation, AI and perception, navigation, embedded firmware, mobile development, mechanical design, safety, testing, research, and documentation.

Read the Contributor Guide


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