Design and Fabrication of an Electric Wheelchair With an Automatic Object Detection Sensor Powered by Solar Energy

Abstract

There are two possibilities of either using manual driven or electric powered driven wheel chairs. The former solution is only for the people who have disability in lower limbs and also long term usage poses further health problems. Additionally, the efficiency of the manual driven wheel chairs are merely 10 to 20%. This project aims to control a wheelchair by means of electric joystick. Smart wheelchair has gained a lot of interests in the recent times. These devices are useful especially in transportation from one place to another. The project also aims to build a similar wheel chair which would have a sort of intelligence and hence helps the user on his/her movement. The prototype of the wheelchair is built using an Arduino microcontroller based computer software, in addition to its versatility and performance in mathematical operations and communication with other electronic devices such as wheelchair control joystick, DC motor control relay module, and ultrasonic sensor. The system has been designed and implemented in a cost effective way so that if our project is commercialized, the needy users in developing countries will benefit from it. To do that, we applied a program carried on Arduino circuit which is connected to the joystick the signal operates a motor to control the movement of the chair. In this way, we have obtained a wheelchair that can be driven using joystick commands and with the possibility of avoiding obstacles and downstairs or hole detection. In the project, in which a prototype has been produced, an Electronic system configuration, a sensor system, a mechanical model, and joystick control are considered