Implementation of Low Cost, Reliable, and Advanced Control with Head Movement, Wheelchair for Physically Challenged People Kunjan D. Shinde, Sayera Tarannum, T Veerabhadrappa, E Gagan and P Vinay Kumar Abstract Hands and legs are the most important part of our mobility in day-to-day life. People will find difficulty in handling their daily activities if they have problems with their hands and legs (Physically challenged, accidental causes, and due to some health issues). Due to this incapability in movement causes several problems in their routine chores, and hence in order to provide a flexible mobility (stand-alone mobility to study, work, and day-to-day activities) in their life we came up this project “Low Cost, Reliable, Advance Control With Head Movements Wheel Chair for Physically Challenged People.” In this project we are making use of Head Movements/tilts to control the Electronic Wheelchair for movements in all directions as per the need of the Physically challenged people, apart from head movements the wheelchair has certain propriety to another control signal (like Enable signal for Head control unit, Manual direction controls, emergency stop, power supply enable switch).
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Keywords Head movements controlled wheelchair Low cost wheelchair using arduino UNO Head tilts using accelerometer 25 A current driver for high torque motors Distance sensing based head movement control Reliable wheelchair for physically challenged people
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1 Introduction For a human being, mobility is the prime substance and need for several activities. Physically challenged people find difficulty in achieving mobility to do a given task, it is necessary for day-to-day activities like travel around, travel to work, and other activities.
K. D. Shinde (✉) ⋅ S. Tarannum ⋅ T. Veerabhadrappa ⋅ E. Gagan ⋅ P. Vinay Kumar Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, PESITM, Shivamogga, India e-mail:
[email protected] © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018 K. Saeed et al. (eds.), Progress in Advanced Computing and Intelligent Engineering, Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 564, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6875-1_31
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The need to facilitate mobility for physically challenged people drives us to design an embedded system which can provide the transportation and local mobility. Hence we came up with the project “Low Cost, Reliable, Advance Control With Head Movements Wheelchair For Physically Challenged People”. This project is meant for physically challenged people (loss of limbs— legs/hands-and-legs—due to accidents, by birth, affected by certain diseases like polio, quadriplegia and so on). to facilitate a smooth and reliable form of mobility in their life to carry out their day to day activities.
1.1
Objectives
To design and implement an electronically controlled, real-time wheelchair for physically challenged people, where the Electronic control to the wheelchair is achieved by head movement of the person sitting on the wheelchair. The wheelchair is facilitated with safety features like automatic detection of the physically challenged person on the wheelchair, Emergency controls (priority based manual override, emergency stop, and system failure indication), and back drive distance monitoring as the salient features of the proposed wheelchair.
2 Literature Survey The following are some papers and project work which we have referred for our work, In [1] the authors have designed and implemented head movement controlled a wheelchair using 8051 microcontrollers and the wheelchair carries a weight of 25–30 kg. (Complexity in the design is increased and accuracy is not achieved). In [2] the authors have implemented “Controlling an Automated Wheelchair via joystick Supported by Smart Driving Assistance”, the control for a wheelchair is achieved by joystick and the wheelchair cost is high (Rs.60,000–65,000). In [3], the authors have implemented “Autonomous Wheelchair for Disabled people” In this additional assistance is required for wheelchair control. In [4] the authors have “Designing and Modeling of Voice controlled Wheelchair Incorporated with Home Automation”, here the system need to senses the proper command and drive the wheelchair, voice modulation of individual and others have to be identified and the desired action has to be taken. (A. System is not reliable and for the new user, a new set of voice commands and recording has to be done. B. Implementation cost is high (Rs. 70,000/- to 75,000/-)). In [5] the authors have “Design and Development of a Hand Glove-Controlled Wheelchair Based on MEMS”, control to the wheelchair is achieved by hand-glove control, this system is not effective for person with a disability in hands and legs. In [6–8] design and control of wheelchair using various other controls are mentioned and it working is coated.
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3 Design and Working of Proposed Wheelchair Figure 1 shows the block diagram of Head Control Unit, this is consists of Head tilt sensor which is used to sense the head movement motions and it is placed on a person’s head. The analog signals from tilt sensor are given to Arduino UNO board and with the suitable programming the signals are calibrated and the control information is sent to base control unit via a wireless transmission unit interfaced at the head control unit. The power to head control unit is provided by a small 9 V DC battery. This unit is very compact and less weight so that it can be mapped to helmet/Cap as the physically challenged person can wear it. Figure 2 shows the block diagram of the base control unit, here the signals from Head control unit are received from the wireless module, based on the security and wheelchair status the control signal to the motor and the wheelchair is driven as per the desire of the physically challenged person. Arduino UNO board dose does not provide a sufficient amount of current to motors so that the motors can carry the appropriate load and hence we are making use of a real-time high power motor driver to drive the motors. Additional safety features like Emergency stop and manual override is provided so that in case if head control unit malfunctions and to take a necessary action by others an alert sound in generated in case of such emergency. Will all the features, this wheelchair can be controlled by joystick/Keypad which is mounted on the wheelchair. For better control and home automation, we have internally designed a line following application for a wheelchair so that a local (home internal movements) mobility can be achieved.
Fig. 1 Block diagram of head movement controlled wheelchair
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Fig. 2 Block diagram of base control unit for head movement controlled wheelchair
4 Results and Discussion 4.1
Design Implementation of Proposed Wheelchair System
The proposed system is implemented on the real wheelchair with high torque DC-geared motors which can drive up to a load of 25 kg and the entire module works for a real time. The Base control unit consists of RF receiver module, Distance sensing, 25 An H-Bridge current driver circuit, Control circuit with an emergency switch and Arduino UNO board to which all these modules are interfaced. Figure 3 shows the implementation of the base control unit (BCU) and indicates the various modules placed on the wheelchair. The RF module is simple ASK Transmitter and Receiver module, the BCU consist of ASK receiver and other mounts of the wheelchair is indicated. Figure 4 shows the implementation of the head control unit, it consists of MEMS accelerometer which is used to sense the head tilts and send the signal to BCU via ASK transmitter mounted on the head control unit. This system is powered by 9 V DC batter connected to the system.
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Fig. 3 Design of proposed wheelchair system
Fig. 4 Implementation of head control unit
The following figures show the images of various modules mounted on the wheelchair system so that the required output of the system can be obtained (Figs. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18).
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Fig. 5 Wheel chair for physical challenged people
Fig. 6 Power supply system (to charge battery when it is LOW and to provide regulated supply and motor supply to the base control unit)
The above figure shows the implementation of the proposed wheelchair and from Table 1 we can analyze the behavior of the wheelchair on various inputs and its response to the state of the input applied with the priority assigned. It is clear that the emergency stop key is having the highest priority which is important to override any malfunction that may take place due to various problems.
Implementation of Low Cost, Reliable, and Advanced Control … Fig. 7 Lead acid battery for wheelchair system (12 V 7 Ah)
Fig. 8 Logic converter to H-Bridge motor driver (if the logic inputs to H-Bridge is logic ‘11’ then the link is short circuited to avoid this we used the above shown converter which passes logic ‘00’ when it gets logic ‘11’ combination)
Fig. 9 Arduino UNO interface with motor driver and other units
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Fig. 10 Base control unit
Fig. 11 Distance sensor and RF receiving antenna
4.2
Outcome of the Project
1. Motorized wheelchair is controlled and driven as per the head movements of the physically challenged person on the proposed chair. 2. Wheelchair is embedded with the salient features for security and reliability for the person on the wheelchair and works in real time. 3. Low cost implementation of the real-time wheelchair with the above facilities mentioned.
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Fig. 12 Manual keypad and high torque DC motor
4.3
Applications
Electronically controlled Wheelchair can be used in 1. Hospitals (with modified control from head of the patient to hands of the Nurses in case of serious issue and hospital patient transportation) 2. General Home applications (can be used in office, home and college by the physically challenged person). 3. Local wheelchair can be replaced with the proposed wheelchair, which is very low cost and easy to use.
4.4
Advantages
1. Low cost compared to existing electronic wheelchair. 2. Head movements with joystick/keypad means of wheelchair control.
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Fig. 13 Module testing for UP tilts
3. Motorized wheelchair with advanced control and safety features. 4. Reliable and cost-effective design.
5 Conclusion The design and implementation of the wheelchair are done for real-time application, here the wheelchair works based on head movements when the head control is enabled and the keypad based operation is achieved based on the priority assigned to them. Hence the designed wheelchair is of low cost and reliable.
Implementation of Low Cost, Reliable, and Advanced Control … Fig. 14 Module testing for RIGHT tilts
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Fig. 16 Enabling and disabling head movements using distance sensor
Fig. 17 Simulation of program using arduino software and serial monitoring the system
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Fig. 18 Back view of the wheelchair base control circuit
Table 1 Function of wheelchair on the different actions of inputs Distance sensor
< 10 cm
> 10 cm
Head movements enabled UP tilt Wheelchair forward LEFT tilt Wheelchair left turn RIGHT tilt Wheelchair right turn Head movements disabled
Manual key pad and priority
Key Emergency stop Forward Left Right Distance sensor
Priority 1 (Highest) 2 3 4 5 (lowest)
Wheelchair movements Stand still Forward direction Left direction Right direction Enable/Disable head tilts
Acknowledgements The Authors would like to thank the management and the Principal and the Dept. of E&CE, PESITM, Shivamogga, for providing all the resources and Support to carry out the project work. We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Ms. Tejaswini G.C, Asst. Professor, Dept. of E&CE, PESITM Shivamogga and Mr. Halaswamy K.E. Lab Instructor, Dept. of E&CE, PEISTM, Shivamogga for the help and motivation provided to carry out the project work. Declaration We the authors have obtained all ethical approvals from appropriate ethical committee and approval from the individuals for the study and the publication of accompanying images of participants in this study.
References 1. Kunjan, D.S., Raghuram, K.M.: Head Movement Controlled Wheelchair. A Project Works At Dept. of E&CE, SDMCET, Dharwad, June 2012 2. Rofer, T., Mandel, C., Laue, T.: Controlling an automated wheelchair via joystick/headjoystick supported by smart driving assistance. In: 2009 IEEE 11th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics Kyoto International Conference Center, Japan, 23–26 June 2009
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3. Pires, G., Honório, N., Lopes, C., Nunes, U., Almeida, A.T.: Autonomous wheelchair for disabled people. In: Proceeding IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics (ISIE97), pp. 797–801, Guimarães 4. Anoop, K.J., Inbaezhilan, Sathish raj, Rama seenivasan, Chola Pandian.: Designing and modeling of voice controlled wheel chair incorporated with home automation. Int. J. Adv. Res. Electr. Electron. Instrum. Eng. (An ISO 3297: 2007 Certified Organization). 3(2) (2014) 5. Meeravali, S., Aparna, M.: Design and development of a hand-glove controlled wheel chair based on MEMS. Int. J. Eng. Trends Technol. (IJETT). 4(8) (2013) 6. Tameemsultana, S., Saranya, N.K.: Implementation of head and finger movement based automatic wheel chair. Bonfring Int. J. Power Syst. Integr. Circ. 1 (2011) 7. Meshram, M.V.P., Rajurkar, M.P.A., Dhiraj Banewar.: Int. J. Adv. Res. Comput. Sci. Softw. Eng. 5(1) (2015) 8. Puneet Dobhal, Rajesh Singh, Shubham Murari.: Smart wheelchair for physically handicapped people using tilt sensor and IEEE 802.15.4 standard protocol. In: Conference on Advances in Communication and Control Systems 2013 (CAC2S 2013) (2013)
Author Biographies Mr. Kunjan D. Shinde is with PESITM Shivamogga, working as Assistant Professor in Dept. of Electronics and Communication Engineering and has a teaching experience of 2 Years. He is Pursuing PhD in VLSI-DSP domain, he received Masters Degree in Digital Electronics from SDMCET Dharwad in 2014 and received Bachelor Degree in Electronics & Communications Engineering from SDMCET Dharwad in 2012. He has published 13+ research papers in reputed journals like IEEE, Elsevier, Springer, and IOSR. His research interests include VLSI, DSP, Analog & Digital Electronics, and Robotics.
Ms. Sayera Tarannum is pursuing B.E. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from PES Institute of Technology and Management, Shivamogga, her area of interest include Embedded system design and microcontrollers.
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K. D. Shinde et al. Mr. T. Veerabhadrappa is pursuing B.E. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from PES Institute of Technology and Management, Shivamogga, his area of interest include Embedded system design and microcontrollers.
Mr. E. Gagan is pursuing B.E. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from PES Institute of Technology and Management, Shivamogga, his area of interest include Embedded system design and microcontrollers.
Mr. P. Vinay Kumar is pursuing B.E. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from PES Institute of Technology and Management, Shivamogga, his area of interest include Embedded system design and microcontrollers.
