Multimodal intelligent wheelchair control based on fuzzy algorithm

As the rapidly growing number of disabled people in China, the role of electric wheelchair becomes important to enhance the mobility for them. Many researchers pay attention to how to solve the problems in daily life for the wheelchair users, rarely cares for their physical exercises. In this paper, a control method of intelligent tennis wheelchair based on seat pressure sensors and omnidirectional wheels is introduced. The relationship between human intention and the changes of gravity center on wheelchair seat is described in details. Hence, this system combines with the traditional inputs in order to form a multimodal system. The user could control the wheelchair in manual or automatic mode. In manual mode, user controls the wheelchair depending on conventional joystick device. While in automatic mode, according to value of weight shift measurement, we infer the user's intension based on fuzzy controller. In addition, we developed an intelligent wheelchair interface in order that those modules could be switched conveniently and freely. Finally some experimental results show that the developed intelligent wheelchair works correctly and effectively in practice.