Interactive Collision Avoidance Based on Surrounding Mobility Type for an Intelligent Powered Wheelchair

Abstract

Electric powered wheelchairs have been developed for people with disabilities and the elderly who have difficulties walking and participating in social activities. However, for users with decreased cognitive abilities and judgment due to further aging, mobility aids that are not only powered but also intelligent are required. Intelligent powered wheelchairs with autonomous locomotion functions are one solution to this problem. This research focused on the complexity of coexisting ʺmobility typesʺ on sidewalks and a prototype intelligent wheelchair equipped with interactive strategies for collision avoidance based on the surrounding mobility type was developed. In order to classify the mobility type of coexisting traffic participants, image-processing components combined with LIDAR were developed. Based on the classification results, the wheelchair selected and executed either a changing-lanes strategy or deceleration strategy autonomously.

A fuzzy logic navigation controller implemented in hardware for an electric wheelchair

“…Furthermore, the utilization of laser range finders (LRs) has been widely used in other smart wheelchairs, presented in the literature. [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] The LRs offer the best accuracy for distance measurementsand a twodimensional scan of the environment. Nonetheless, those sensors are far from being economical, their power consumption is high (a big problem for the wheelchair batteries), and their size limits mounting too many on any wheelchair structure.…”