Design and development of a new sensor system for assistive powered wheelchairs

Abstract

Many disabled people experience considerable difficulties when driving a powered wheelchair. Disabled people who are not able to drive a powered wheelchair are seriously limited in their mobility. Several robotic assistive wheelchairs have been devised in the past. These wheelchairs are equipped with range sensors, which detect obstacles and measure the distance to the closest object. The authors are involved in this kind of projects but, although many sensors exist commercially, they never found satisfactory range sensors for wheelchair applications. After identifying these sensor requirements, this paper presents the design of an optical ranging system, more in particular a lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) scanner for wheelchair applications. Test results are reported to show that this scanner meets the identified requirements.