Development of a smart wheelchair with dual functions: Real-time control and automated guide

Wheelchairs are devices used for mobility by people whose walking is difficult or impossible, due to illness or disability. There are many types of wheelchairs, including basic, light-weight, folding, multi-function, special types, and so on. Each of them has its advantages and disadvantages. Development of brain-computer interface applications has become quite popular in recent year. It allows direct communication between brain and computer. One type of the communication is by imagination. By analyzing the EEG signals under imagination, different features could be calculated to transform into instructions for the control of back-end robotic device. Since brain-computer interface allows users to control the instruments without the need of physical input, it may be suitable for patients with physical defects or limb weakness. Therefore, this study aimed to design a smart wheelchair which has real-time control and automated guided functions. We based on the advantages of simple and rapid construction in LabVIEW to develop the smart wheelchair. This system was able to control our own-made wheelchair model with dual functions. In the real-time control function, our results show that the average accuracy of the imagination to the left was 70% and the average accuracy of the imagination to the right was 60%. In the automated guided function, our results tested in small-area (20m · 20m in space) shows that wheelchair could move along the pre-setting path. In the future, we want to improve the whole system and make this prototype wheelchair more practical as using a real wheelchair instead of a wheelchair model. We hope to make this functional wheelchair more humane, so that the wheelchair is not only comfortable and safe but also has multiple functions to improve patient's quality of life and reduce the burden of care from their families.