Efforts toward an autonomous wheelchair - biomed 2011

An autonomous wheelchair is in development to provide mobility to those with significant physical challenges. The overall goal of the project is to develop a wheelchair that is fully autonomous with the ability to navigate about an environment and negotiate obstacles. As a starting point for the project, we have reversed engineered the joystick control system of an off-the-shelf commercially available wheelchair. The joystick control has been replaced with a microcontroller based system. The microcontroller has the capability to interface with a number of subsystems currently under development including wheel odometers, obstacle avoidance sensors, and ultrasonic-based wall sensors. This paper will discuss the microcontroller based system and provide a detailed system description. Results of this study may be adapted to commercial or military robot control.