This paper deals with various ways of controlling an electrically powered wheelchair beyond the usual method involving a manual joystick. The main focus is on the newest version of HaWCoS – the ”HAnds-free Wheelchair COntrol System” – allowing persons with severe disabilities to reliably navigate a power wheelchair without the need to use the hands. All the user has to do is to produce a sequen...

This paper describes a wheelchair for physically disabled people developed within the UMIDAM I Project. A dependent-user recognition voice system and ultrasonic and infrared sensor systems has been integrated in this wheelchair. In this way we have obtained a wheelchair which can be driven with using voice commands and with the possibility of avoiding obstacles and downstairs or hole detection....

Rear tipping accidents in wheelchairs are a common problem, the likelihood of which may be increased by the combination of a wheelchair with low stability and an occupant with altered body morphology, such as a person with lower limb amputations. This study tests the hypothesis that counterweights on the wheelchair footrests significantly increase static rear stability. In addition to pilot wor...

This paper describes to develop an intelligent wheelchair which is useful to physically disabled people with introducing control and navigational intelligence. Some people with severely handicapped people that affect hand movements, motor is not possible to drive a common electric wheelchair. In Powered wheelchair is not able to drive correctly with the joystick. It proposed the design of Intel...

A new control system of a hand gesture-controlled wheelchair (EWC) is proposed. This smart control device is suitable for a large number of patients who cannot manipulate a standard joystick wheelchair. The movement control system uses a camera fixed on the wheelchair. The patient's hand movements are recognized using a visual recognition algorithm and artificial intelligence software; the deri...

People who suffer from impaired upper-limb mobility find a conventional joystick-controlled powered wheelchair difficult or impossible to drive. Thus, several alternative, hands-free methods for controlling the wheelchair via the chin, the tongue, voice commands, and eye tracking have been developed. A recent method relies on an egocentric camera as the primary sensor and on computer vision tec...

This paper describes new results with a Reactive Shared-Control system that enables a semi-autonomous navigation of a wheelchair in unknown and dynamic environments. The purpose of the reactive shared controller is to assist wheelchair users providing an easier and safer navigation. It is designed as a fuzzy-logic controller and follows a behaviour-based architecture. The implemented behaviours...

A new device for the control of power wheelchairs is introduced. Besides a speech recognition module its main component consists in two force sensors, shaped to match the hands of the user. The sensors are able to measure slightest pressures executed by the thumbs. Commonly, mobility impaired persons control a power wheelchair via a joystick. This requires the ability to execute distinct moveme...

The purpose of the present paper is to realize a high functionality of a power-assisted wheelchair with consideration of the driving environment. It is very important to recognize the environment in order to support wheelchair users and caregivers. In this paper, sensors are used to measure the state of the environment where is slope angle of uphill. Since these sensors implement to the wheelch...

OBJECTIVE The aims of this study were to test the hypothesis that people with stroke who receive formal powered wheelchair skills training improve their wheelchair skills to a significantly greater extent than participants in a control group who do not and to explore the influence of spatial neglect. DESIGN Seventeen participants with stroke (including nine with spatial neglect) were randomly...