Designing of a Trajectory Control System for Wheelchairs with a Combination of Automatic and Manual Steering Methods

Abstract

A wheelchair is a special form of Personal Mobility Vehicle (PMV) for people with disabilities to help them move safely to their desired location. However, unlike conventional PMVs, wheelchairs for people with disabilities when moving in places with heavy traffic will be difficult to control manually. This study focuses on the designing and feasibility testing of PMV's control systems for people with disabilities to meet safety and efficiency standards even in complex environments. First, the control structure model required for PMV is proposed. This is followed by the application of the combination between First In First Out (FIFO) and Dijkstra traffic control methods to determine effective trajectory for PMVs. After that, the proposed wheelchair trajectory control system is automatically tested on the campus of the University of Transport and Communications. The simulation results show that if the time of 10 PMVs is taken as the comparative time, when the number of PMVs is from 5 to 20, the order execution time of each PMV hardly changes much (no more than 10%), when the number of PMW increases to 25, 30, 35, 40, the order execution time of all vehicles increased from 35%, 55%, 103%, 119%. It is shown that the system can safely control a large number of PMVs at standards such as efficiency, safety, flexibility.