Action control method for powered wheelchairs considering control input and environmental information

Powered wheelchair is a mobility commonly used for people with disabilities. Recently, to improve the safety and efficiency of powered wheelchairs, various systems with control assistance are proposed. However most of the systems suppose joystick as input device and doesn't consider about people with difficulties using it. Not all devices alternative to joystick have enough operability compared to joystick. In this paper, considering corridor passing as verification environment, an action control method to drive through the corridor safely and efficiently for wheelchairs controlled by devices with low operability is presented. To achieve safe and efficient driving, proposed method considers the time series of passenger's input commands and combines the environmental information to select effective direction and speed for the wheelchair instead of passenger. Moreover for environment recognition, corridor detection algorithm is also proposed. To verify the effectiveness of proposed method, simulations and experiments were carried out.