Design and Development of IoT Enabled Hybrid Wheelchair cum Bed

Abstract

A very few innovations have been noticed in the area of wheelchair production. This area is of utmost importance but yet unexplored. The innovations in this area can directly benefit disabled and old-age people and the medical staff would be the indirect beneficiaries. This research work is proposing a smart IoT enabled wheelchair cum bed keeping stability, safety, durability and affordability in mind. In addition, this research work also emphasized to make it foldable and versatile. The transformation of a wheelchair to bed and vice-versa was achieved by making use of hydraulic and linear actuators which in turn improved the patients comfort and functioning of a device. The entire system was tested in both the lab environment as well as in a real environment. A 3G Internet connectivity was used to transmit the patient's vital parameters and to establish a face-to-face communication with a doctor. The system performed well even in a 3G environment. Thus, it can be predicted that it will perform even better in 4G environments.