Design of a Low-Cost, Lightweight Smart Wheelchair

This paper presents a smart wheelchair, a customized version of a commercially available manual one. The motivation of this research was to support individuals with limited mobility in navigating their world. The proposed automated wheelchair consists of a stereo depth camera, LIDAR, DC gear motor, motor controller, joystick, emergency switch, processors, etc. The users have the option of controlling where their wheelchair goes by navigating themselves through the joystick or automatically through the developed hands-free application. This app relays back to the Jetson processor situated underneath the chair, which has the capability to move through any indoor location to reach the user's chosen destination. Although the initial research goal was to enable the wheelchair to navigate a patient through an indoor hospital facility, this low-cost, lightweight wheelchair is envisioned to be employed in all indoor locations and accessible by a broader range of users than just the wealthy few. The project's design files have been made available so that this open-source wheelchair can be reproduced publicly.