A New Approach to a Power Wheel Chair for Children
Yiyuan Jia, Spencer Bennett, Matthew Payne & Dr. Baha Jassemnejad
Department of Engineering and Physics, University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond, OK 73034
Overview
Abstract
Power wheelchair is a feasible alternative to small
children with developmental and motor disabilities, such
as Cerebral Palsy and Spinal Muscular Atrophy. A power
wheelchair provides the disabled child an opportunity
and means to mobility and interaction, therefore
improving the development in other areas that would be
indirectly affected by the disability.1 However, up until
now, infants under 24 months of age were not
considered candidates for training in power mobility,2
and it is sometimes not easy for a child to precisely
control the wheelchair at certain situations which may
cause potential safety hazard.
To solve these problems, in this project our team is
aiming to design and build a parent assistance controlled
wheelchair system that can be operated by a parent who
wants to real-time monitor his/her child’s situation and
even help the child to control the wheelchair. Besides, in
order to make the parent control process easily and
precisely, we want use a smart phone as our controller
and monitor.
In order to achieve these goals, the cloud computing
technology will be applied in the system, obstacle
detection function will be build in the wheelchair.
Background
Battery
Left Motor
Joy Stick
Motor Controller
Right Motor
Figure 1 A Schematic of Commercial Power
Wheelchair
In an unmodified commercial electric power wheelchair
a joystick or any user interface system (switches,
touchscreen displays, etc.) is linked to the wheelchair
main controller (which acts as a motor controller) and
the controller is connected to the two motors. Batteries
are also connected to the controller, providing the
necessary power for the system. The user selects the
desired speed and direction using the joystick and the
controller drives the motors based on the signal received
by the joystick.
Figure 2 A Schemiatic of the Proposed Prototype
System
Cloud Computing & Communication
In order to control our device from a large distance away
without having the major components of the processing
being physically mounted to one end or the other, we will
employ the use of cloud computing in order to alleviate
both sides of the extra hardware. Having essentially all of
the computing handled this way will mean that ease of
access for both involved parties will be maximized. (i.e.:
the person sitting in the chair and the person remotely
controlling it). It is our goal to successfully create a
control system that will allow the normal functions of the
chair whenever the driver is in good condition to operate
the vehicle, and then to allow the controls to be
overridden in the case where the driver of the chair is, for
whatever reason, unable to control the chair.
The implementation of this new technology will require an
extensive knowledge of the programming and execution
of mobile application programming. Using the Java
programming language we will develop a remote control
app that could be downloaded onto a mobile device such
as an iPhone or Android and can be used anywhere the
user has access to Wi-Fi and/or 3G for compatible
devices.
Monitor System
As is warranted by the above explanation, one must be
able to the environment of the chair in order to control it
effectively from long range. For this reason, we have
implemented also the use of a remote monitoring system,
which will traffic data in the same fashion as the remote
control, however the monitoring system will require
significantly less rigorous programming and will work
Overview Continued
Future Work
hand in hand with the remote control system.
The monitor system for the chair will consist of a camera
located of the front of the chair, which will be pointed
directly forward. By using commercial monitoring
software, it will be possible to access the streaming video
on an iPhone or other smartphone or computer. This will
allow the parent to see where the child is going.
Mobile App Programing
in this semester, we will be running a web server as our
Control System
The control system is consist of a Basic Stamp 2sx
microcontroller, sonar sensor system, a joystick and a
motor controller. Control signal will be processed by the
microcontroller, the signal from computer will be
programmed and execute, combining the feedback signal
from the sensor system and then connect to the joystick in
order to control the wheelchair.
Note that in this project the joystick is not supposed to be
functioning as a controller by the child, however, in the
next step of control system design, we will make two
control modes that can be switched between parents
control and child control which will be build in our mobile
app and can be operate by the parents.
Prototype
Figure 3 Quickie Zippie P500 Power Wheelchair
We adopt a Quickie Disign Zippie P500 Power Wheelchair
as our base. A Basic Stamp 2SX is embedded in the
system which can be programed and make an order to
the motor controller. A sonar sensor will also be build on
the wheelchair which will provide the obstacle detection
function.
“cloud” on the computer for the iPhone to be able to
communicate with the system. Our next goal is to rent
a cloud sever to store and process both the controlling
and monitoring information.
we are also going to develop our own mobile apps run on
either a ios or Android platform.
Simulation
We would like to simulate the control system using
Labview and Matlab to make sure its stability.
Human- Machine Interface Technologies
Some other novel Human-Machine Interface Technologies
may be adopted in our system, such as voice control, eyetracking and pressure sensing.
References
[1] Power Mobility and Socialization in Preschool: A Case
Study of a Child With Cerebral Palsy
[2]Babies driving robots: self-generated mobility in very
young infants
[3] Introduction to Mechatronics and Measurement Systems
4th Edition by David G. Alciatore et.
[4] Design and Development of Fuzzy Logic Operated
Microcontroller Based Smart Motorized Wheelchair by
Hamid Reza Moslehi.
[5] A Description of the SENA Robotic Wheelchair by
Gonzalez J et.
[6] Shared User-Computer Control of a Robotic Wheelchair
System by Holly A. Yanco.
[7] Hum-Power Controller for Powered Wheelchairs by
Hossein Ghaffari Nik
Contact Information
Dr. Baha Jassemnejad
Department of Engineering and Physics
Howell Hall 221B
University of Central Oklahoma
100 N. University Drive
Edmond, OK 73034
USA
Tel: 405.974.5461
Fax: 405.974.3812
Web: www.physics.uco.edu
Email: bjassemnejad@uco.edu