Complementary functions for intelligent wheelchair head tilts controller

Abstract

A head tilt controller has been used to help quadriplegics and paralyzed patient to control an electrical wheelchair by head movement instead of using the conventional joystick control. In this paper, several functions for improving the performance of the head tilt controller have been proposed. Command confirmation function has been used to remove the effect of involuntary head motion between stop and motion control commands regions. The emergency stop function has been used to provide safety conditions when the head orientation goes out of the limited ranges. The orientation sensor error handling function has been integrated to track the orientation data of the user's head as well as of the wheelchair and send an alarm if there is no change or update on the orientation information to avoid the wrong command in case of one or both sensors are not responding.