Development of a novel elastic path controller

This paper presents a novel type of Elastic Path Controller (EPC) to control and manipulate the assistive devices such as the Collaborative Wheelchair Assistant (CWA). Compared to previous controllers such as Samson’s and Brent’s controller, the proposed EPC is safer and more maneuverable. This paper also proposes the handling of singularity and solutions to backward motion problems of the EPC. Simulation experiments show that the new EPC can fulfill the tasks of path following, obstacle avoiding, singularity handling, backward motion, and so on.