Wheelchair-based open robotic platform and its performance within the AmbienNet project

Abstract

This paper presents the design and development of the Robochair robotic wheelchair and its performance within the AmbienNet project. Robochair is an open robotic platform intended to assist challenged users with their daily driving tasks. It uses and extents the Player robotics framework providing uniform access to either robotics hardware and user input/output devices. In addition to that, and from low level point of view, the CANopen communication layer is used for the communication of any device within Robochair, which allows interoperability and exchangeability of different third party devices. In addition, the paper describes a navigation assistance application within the context of AmbienNet project, where an intelligent environment called AmbienNet supports the global navigation of Robochair wheelchair.