Manual, Automatic and Shared Methods for Controlling an Intelligent Wheelchair Adaptation to Cerebral Palsy Users

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

Authors

faria, bm (Author) Other; reis, lp (Author) FCUP; lau, n (Author) FCUP

Conference proceedings International

Title: Proceedings of the 2013 13th International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems, ROBOTICA 2013

13th International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems

Lisbon, PORTUGAL, APR 24, 2013

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 2 Citations

Scopus - 7 Citations

Scientific classification

FOS: Natural sciences > Computer and information sciences

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-008-K3Q

DOI: 10.1109/robotica.2013.6623523

Abstract (EN): The development of an intelligent wheelchair (IW) platform that may be easily adapted to any commercial wheelchair and aid any person with special mobility needs is the main objective of this project. To be able to achieve this main objective, three distinct control methods were implemented in the IW: manual, shared and automatic. Several manual, shared and automatic control algorithms were developed for this task. This paper presents three of the most significant of those algorithms with emphasis on the shared control method. Experiments were performed, using a realistic simulator, with real users suffering from cerebral palsy in order to validate the approach. These experiments enabled to conclude which were the best shared control methods to implement on the IW. The experiments also revealed the importance of using shared (aided) controls for users with severe disabilities. The patients still felt having complete control over the wheelchair movement when using a shared control at a 50% level and thus this control type was very well accepted and should be used in intelligent wheelchairs since it is able to correct the direction in case of involuntary movements of the user but still gives him a sense of complete control over the IW movement.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 6