Intelligent Wheelchair Manual Control Methods A Usability Study by Cerebral Palsy Patients

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 2013

Authors

faria, bm (Author) Other; ferreira, lm (Author) Other; reis, lp (Author) FEUP; lau, n (Author) Other; petry, m (Author) Other

Conference proceedings International

Title: PROGRESS IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, EPIA 2013

Pages: 271-282

16th Portuguese Conference on Artificial Intelligence (EPIA)

Angra do Heroismo, PORTUGAL, SEP 09-12, 2013

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 8 Citations

Scopus - 11 Citations

Scientific classification

FOS: Natural sciences > Computer and information sciences

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-008-EFT

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-40669-0_24

Abstract (EN): Assistive Technologies may greatly contribute to give autonomy and independence for individuals with physical limitations. Electric wheelchairs are examples of those assistive technologies and nowadays each time becoming more intelligent due to the use of technology that provides assisted safer driving. Usually, the user controls the electric wheelchair with a conventional analog joystick. However, this implies the need for an appropriate methodology to map the position of the joystick handle, in a Cartesian coordinate system, to the wheelchair wheels intended velocities. This mapping is very important since it will determine the response behavior of the wheelchair to the user manual control. This paper describes the implementation of several joystick mappings in an intelligent wheelchair (IW) prototype. Experiments were performed in a realistic simulator using cerebral palsy users with distinct driving abilities. The users had 6 different joystick control mapping methods and for each user the usability and the users' preference order was measured. The results achieved show that a linear mapping, with appropriate parameters, between the joystick's coordinates and the wheelchair wheel speeds is preferred by the majority of the users.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 12