Advances in smart wheelchair technology

A Survey of Disabled Persons by NSSO (2011) reported that Disability is an important public health problem in India. The wheelchair is topmost used assistive devices for enhancing the personal mobility of disabled people. Power wheelchairs are useful for those unable to propel a manual wheelchair. The disabled people with visual acuity, lack of motor skills and strength find difficult to use a power wheelchair. To solve this problem, several researchers have used mobile robots technologies to create smart wheelchairs. A smart wheelchair typically contains a standard power wheelchair, a computer and a collection of sensors. The recent development in research areas such as computer science, robotics, Artificial Intelligence and sensor technology broaden the range of features in smart wheelchairs. This paper presents designs of different prototypes of smart wheelchairs proposed by researchers. Future research challenges in this field are recognized. Also, Directions for upcoming research are discussed.