A Novel Head Gesture Recognition Based Control for Intelligent Wheelchairs

To meet the challenges in today’s world of global computing, fast technologies, and increasingly old age population, the researchers have been trying to switch from traditional modes of navigation to automatically operated modes of navigation. This gives a level of independence in their daily activities inside the house without much effort. The demand for assistive navigation technologies to help elderly and disabled peoples has also risen due to the modern life style and nuclear family. In this project our goal is to design and develop an intelligent wheelchair for severely disabled i.e, multiple sclerosis, quadriplegic patients and old age people based on head gesture control. The Automatic wheelchair developed basically works on the principle of acceleration. According to the head tilt movement of user the accelerometer MMA7361 used in the system gives variation in the voltage across xaxis &y-axis as output. The accelerometer is connected to ATMEGA328 Microcontroller which sends commands according to the head gesture recognition of user. Further μC controls the direction of wheelchair by using H-Bridge Motor driver ICL293D.The Obstacle avoidance ultrasonic sensor attached to the wheelchair in front provides safe navigation and LCD attached on top gives user friendly interface.