Embedded system design for real-time interaction with Smart Wheelchair

Ubiquitous devices are becoming a part of people's day-to-day life. Smart devices not only aid to people's life but also are becoming a crucial part of physically challenged and aged people. The need for safe and independent mobility for the elderly and physical challenged people is of prime concern. The paper deals with creation of a Smart Wheel-Chair (SWC) that mainly focuses on the mentioned issue in a very affordable way and to a greater extent. The Wheel-Chair is controlled by RTOS as its core operating system. It consists of a touch-screen based navigation system along with accident prevention and fall detection. A semi-automatic vision function, heart rate sensors and physiological stress sensors have been integrated. GPRS system is used for location determination and GSM is used to communicate in those cases where certain abnormal events like falling, accident or health issues are trigged. The real-time interaction functions are designed with the motive to make the user operating the wheel-chair completely self-dependent and his interaction with the environment can be like of a normal person.