One of the greatest challenges facing our handicapped population is making sure every building is wheelchair accessible. Unfortunately, some buildings are just too old or small to add ramps or lifts. It can be discouraging, but some of the brightest minds in Japan may have found a solution.

The Chiba Institute Of Technology has created an all-new wheelchair that is capable of walking up stairs. How does it do this? Well, it walks. It’s actually rather hard to describe it, but this wheelchair can lift its wheels to walk up or down stairs. I’m actually surprised that nobody else has come up with this idea.

At the moment, the wheelchair is still in the concept phase. The inventors say that they are mostly done with fine-tuning the movement, but there’s still much work to be done. They hope to start testing the wheelchair among the general population soon to improve the user experience.

This wheelchair isn’t going to be available to the public anytime soon, but it’s a sign of hope. Those who suffer from handicaps will hopefully no longer be affected by them in the near future. Inventions like this wheelchair or exoskeletons may one day give everybody the freedom that walking provides.