Elderly and disabled people can experience consid-erable difficulties when driving an electric wheelchair, especially if they do not possess the fine steering capac-ities that are required to perform 'common' manoeu-vres, like avoiding obstacles, docking at tables, driv-ing through doors, etc. This paper describes a possi-ble approach to equip the wheelchair with an intelli-gent controller that performs low-level assistance, so wheelchair control is shared between the user and this controller. For proper operation, the controller should have a good idea of what the user wants in a particu-lar situation, or in other words what his/her intention could be. This text focuses on an 'implicit' estimation of the user's intention.