Wheelchair/bed docking control based on the combination of vision and ultrasound

Abstract

In view of the docking problem of indoor Intelligent Wheelchair/Bed (IWB), a docking control method based on the combination of a simple artificial landmark and ultrasound is proposed in this paper. First, the artificial landmark on the auxiliary bed is identified and the artificial landmark is used to establish the world coordinate system; then, the relative position and orientation from the wheelchair to the auxiliary bed are determined by the landmark in visual stage; Finally, according to the distance measured by the ultrasound between the wheelchair and the bed, the wheelchair travels to the auxiliary bed to accomplish the docking task. Implementation of the wheelchair docking is grounded on the Robotic Operating System (ROS) platform and WINCE platform. Experimental results show that this method is practical and effective in docking process.