A survey on different human-machine interactions used for controlling an electric wheelchair

Abstract

Nowadays, enhanced mobility is a major challenge in the public healthcare sector, especially for the elderly and disabled persons living alone. Therefore, the demand for assistance systems as smart wheelchairs, especially for patients who are not able to walk normally because of some injury, has considerably increased within the healthcare industry. The power of modern computer systems has created new opportunities for human-machine interaction researchers to expand the capabilities of conventional wheelchairs by introducing specialized interfaces to enable the user to emit a command perceptible and understandable by a machine. In this paper, we present a survey on different human-machine interactions used for controlling an electric wheelchair and we demonstrate the effectiveness of our interface based on human facial expressions.