Filling the Gap between Research and Market: Portable Architecture for an Intelligent Autonomous Wheelchair

Juan Carlos García (), Marta Marrón-Romera, Alessandro Melino, Cristina Losada-Gutiérrez, José Manuel Rodríguez and Albert Fazakas
Additional contact information
Juan Carlos García: GEINTRA, Electronics Department, Polytechnics School, Campus Universitario, 28805 Alcalá de Henares, Spain
Marta Marrón-Romera: GEINTRA, Electronics Department, Polytechnics School, Campus Universitario, 28805 Alcalá de Henares, Spain
Alessandro Melino: GEINTRA, Electronics Department, Polytechnics School, Campus Universitario, 28805 Alcalá de Henares, Spain
Cristina Losada-Gutiérrez: GEINTRA, Electronics Department, Polytechnics School, Campus Universitario, 28805 Alcalá de Henares, Spain
José Manuel Rodríguez: GEINTRA, Electronics Department, Polytechnics School, Campus Universitario, 28805 Alcalá de Henares, Spain
Albert Fazakas: GEINTRA, Electronics Department, Polytechnics School, Campus Universitario, 28805 Alcalá de Henares, Spain

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 2, 1-28

Abstract: Under the umbrella of assistive technologies research, a lot of different platforms have appeared since the 1980s, trying to improve the independence of people with severe mobility problems. Those works followed the same path coming from the field of robotics trying to reach users’ needs. Nevertheless, those approaches rarely arrived on the market, due to their specificity and price. This paper presents a new prototype of an intelligent wheelchair (IW) that tries to fill the gap between research labs and market. In order to achieve such a goal, the proposed solution balances the criteria of performance and cost by using low-cost hardware and open software standards in mobile robots combined together within a modular architecture, which can be easily adapted to different profiles of a wide range of potential users. The basic building block consists of a mechanical chassis with two electric motors and a low-level electronic control system; driven by a joystick, this platform behaves similar to a standard electrical wheelchair. However, the underlying structure of the system includes several independent but connected nodes that form a distributed and scalable architecture that allows its adaptability, by adding new modules, to tackle autonomous navigation. The communication among the system nodes is based on the controller area network (CAN) specification, an extended standard in industrial fields that have a wide range of low-cost devices and tools. The system was tested and evaluated in indoor environments and by final users in order to ensure its usability, robustness, and reliability; it also demonstrated its functionality when navigating through buildings, corridors, and offices. The portability of the solution proposed is also shown by presenting the results on two different platforms: one for kids and another one for adults, based on different commercial mechanical platforms.

Keywords: intelligent wheelchair; node structure; CAN bus; indoor navigation; robotics; multisensors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/2/1243/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/2/1243/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:2:p:1243-:d:1030815

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().