Vision-based adaptive assistance and haptic guidance for safe wheelchair corridor following

Abstract

In case of motor impairments, steering a wheelchair can become a hazardous task. Joystick jerks induced by uncontrolled motions may lead to wall collisions when a user steers a wheelchair along a corridor. This work introduces a low-cost assistive and guidance system for indoor corridor navigation in a wheelchair, which uses purely visual information, and which is capable of providing automatic trajectory correction and haptic guidance in order to avoid wall collisions. A visual servoing approach to autonomous corridor following serves as the backbone to this system. The algorithm employs natural image features which can be robustly extracted in real time. This algorithm is then fused with manual joystick input from the user so that progressive assistance and trajectory correction can be activated as soon as the user is in danger of collision. A force feedback in conjunction with the assistance is provided on the joystick in order to guide the user out of his dangerous trajectory. This ensures intuitive guidance and minimal interference from the trajectory correction system. In addition to being a low-cost approach, it can be seen that the proposed solution does not require an a-priori environment model. Experiments on a robotised wheelchair equipped with a monocular camera prove the capability of the system to adaptively guide and assist a user navigating in a corridor.

Development of a New Intelligent Joystick for People with Reduced Mobility

“…However, low-pass filters are adequate to filter out some unintended movements such as tremor. Vishnu et al present in [10] an algorithm which employs natural image features for indoor corridor navigation. This algorithm is then fused with standard joystick input from the user for progressive assistance and trajectory correction.…”

Redundant Mobility System Design for Impaired People

“…Sensors in the tongue can communicate one of six basic functions for the wheelchair. The system allows users to control their wheelchair, and other system connected [12]. Those of that system can fail producing possible damage on the quadriplegic people.…”

Development of Universal Wheelchair Transporter

“…Improvements had been done on the controlled system by upgraded from manually to semi auto and fully autonomous controlled system. For example, wheelchair is controlled using vision based controlled [4], speech controlled [2], brain-controlled interfaces [5], and hybrid (gesture and speech) controlled system [1] to run the wheelchair. Most of the researcher are focusing on the control system of the wheelchair including the maneuverability, navigational intelligence, and multi-modal control interfaces [3].…”