Assistive Know-how: Navigate Safely With Strutt EV1

At CES 2026 in Las Vegas, Singapore-based startup Strutt launched the EV¹, a powered private mobility gadget that makes use of lidar, cameras, and onboard computing for collision avoidance. Not like manually-steered powered wheelchairs, the EV¹ assists with navigation in each indoor and out of doors environments—stopping or rerouting itself earlier than a collision can happen.

Strutt describes its strategy as “shared management,” during which the person units path and pace, whereas the gadget intervenes to keep away from unsafe movement.

“The issue isn’t at all times incapacity,” says Strutt cofounder and CEO Tony Hong. “Generally individuals are simply drained. They’ve restricted vitality, and mobility shouldn’t devour it.”

Constructing a mobility platform was not Hong’s unique ambition. Educated in optics and sensor programs, he beforehand labored in aerospace and robotics. From 2016 to 2019, he led the event of lidar programs for drones at Shenzhen, China-based DJI, a number one producer of client {and professional} drones. Hong then left DJI for a place as an assistant professor at Southern College of Science and Know-how in Shenzhen—a college recognized for its analysis in robotics, human augmentation, sensors, and rehabilitation engineering.

Nevertheless, he says, demographic developments round him proved exhausting to disregard. Populations in Asia, Europe, and North America are getting older quickly. Extra individuals are dwelling longer, with restricted stamina, slower response occasions, or stability challenges. So, Hong says he left academia to develop expertise that will assist individuals going through mobility limitations.

Not a Wheelchair—an EV

EV¹ combines two lidar models, two cameras, 10 time-of-flight depth sensors, and 6 ultrasonic sensors. Sensor information feeds into onboard computing that performs object detection and path planning.

“We want accuracy at a couple of centimeters,” Hong says. “In any other case, you’re hitting door frames.”

Utilizing the touchscreen interface, customers can choose a vacation spot inside the mapped atmosphere. The onboard system calculates a secure route and guides the automobile at a lowered pace of about 3 miles per hour. The rider can override the route immediately with joystick enter. The system even helps voice instructions, permitting the person to direct the EV1 to waypoints saved in its reminiscence.

The person can say, for instance, “Go to the fridge,” and it’ll chart a course to the fridge and go there, avoiding obstacles alongside the way in which.

The Strutt EV1 places each joystick controls and a lidar-view of the atmosphere in entrance of the gadget’s person. Strutt

Driving EV¹ in handbook mode, the rider retains full management, with vibration suggestions warning of close by obstacles. In “copilot” mode, the automobile prevents direct collisions by stopping earlier than impression. In “copilot plus,” it will probably steer round obstacles whereas persevering with within the supposed path of journey.

“We don’t name it autonomous driving,” Hong says. “The person is at all times accountable and might take management immediately.”

Hong says Strutt has additionally stored its customers’ digital privateness in thoughts. All notion, planning, and management computations, he says, happen onboard the gadget. Sensor information is just not transmitted except the person chooses to add logs for diagnostics. Digital camera and microphone exercise is visibly indicated, and wi-fi communications are encrypted. Navigation and impediment avoidance operate with out cloud connectivity.

“We don’t consider this as a wheelchair,” Hong says. “We consider it as an on a regular basis automobile.”

Strutt promotes EV1’s use for each out of doors and indoor environments—providing high-precision sensing capabilities to navigate confined areas. Strutt

To make sure that the EV¹ may stand up to years of shuttling a person forwards and backwards inside their house and round their neighborhood, the Strutt workforce subjected the mobility automobile to 2 million curler cycles—mechanical simulation testing that enables engineers to estimate how effectively the motors, bearings, suspension, and body will maintain up over time.

The EV1’s 600-watt-hour lithium iron phosphate battery supplies 32 kilometers of vary—sufficient for a full day of errands, indoor navigation, and neighborhood journey. A smaller 300-watt-hour model, designed to adjust to airline lithium-battery limits, delivers 16 km. Charging from zero to 80 % takes two hours.

May These EVs Be Lined by Insurance coverage?

The EV1 retails for US $7,500—a worth that would place it exterior the attain of individuals with out deep pockets. For now, superior sensors and embedded computing preserve manufacturing value excessive, whereas insurance coverage reimbursement frameworks for AI-assisted mobility gadgets depend upon the place an individual lives.

“A retail worth of $7,500 raises severe fairness issues,” says Erick Rocha, communications and growth coordinator on the Los Angeles-based advocacy group Incapacity Voices United,. “Many mobility gadget customers within the United States depend on Medicaid,” the federal government insurance coverage program for individuals with restricted incomes. “Entry should not be restricted to those that can afford to pay out of pocket.”

Medicaid protection for high-tech mobility gadgets varies broadly by state, and a few states have guidelines that create important obstacles to approval (particularly for non-standard or extra specialised gear).

Even in states that do cowl mobility gadgets, related sorts of hurdles typically present up. Virtually all states require prior approval for powered mobility gadgets, and the method may be time-consuming and documentation-heavy. Many states rigidly outline what “medically essential” means. They could require an in depth prescription describing the options of the mobility gadget and why the affected person’s wants can’t be met with a less complicated mobility assist corresponding to a walker, cane, or commonplace handbook wheelchair. Some states’ processes embrace a complete in-person examination, documenting how the impairment described by the clinician limits actions of day by day dwelling corresponding to toileting, dressing, bathing, or consuming. Even when an individual overcomes these hurdles, a state Medicaid program may deny protection if a tool doesn’t match neatly into current Healthcare Widespread Process Coding System billing codes

“Sensor-assisted programs can enhance security,” Rocha says. “However the query is whether or not a tool really meets the lived, day-to-day realities of individuals with restricted mobility.”

Hong says that Strutt, based in 2023, is betting that falling sensor costs and advances in embedded processing now make business deployment of the EV¹ possible.