[devit]

As mentioned in one on the comments on the article, a patent for something very similar was filed with 1988 priority in the US: https://www.google.com/patents/US5123495

Wonder why it hasn't made to the market in the 27 years since that patent?

[TheSpiceIsLife]

I live in Australia, here stair climbing wheelchairs are obviated by wheelchair ramps in to every public use building and commercial building. Wheelchair bound people are also given subsidies to have ramps installed at their homes too.

Additionally, I'd hazard a guess that price effects consumer uptake. If the the stair climbing feature costs, probably at least(?), $5,000 to $10,000 dollars extra fewer people are likely interest.

edit: a word and a space

[kragen]

Affordable robots 27 years ago were fairly primitive. Even expensive robots were pretty limited compared to what we have today.