Research On Real-time Obstacle Avoidance Of Intelligent Wheelchair Based On Multi-sensor Fusion

Currently, the world’s aging population is intensifying and the number of empty nesters is increasing, meanwhile the number of disabilities caused by various factors is also increasing year by year, so the smart wheelchair appears. It improves their freedom of action and provides superior performance means of transport for those people with reduced mobility, which reduces the burden on society and family. Smart wheelchair is a service robot which is generally used by people with reduced mobility. The wheelchair would inevitably encounters some obstacles in the process of walking independently, so the wheelchair must have a fundamental capability of flexible, real-time to avoid these obstacles. Therefore, this article mainly studies the real-time obstacle avoidance problem of the smart wheelchair.First, we conduct a modular design for the system of smart wheelchair. The mechanical design and electrical control design are introduced respectively. And we describe the function of the main control module, drive module, context-aware module, human-computer interaction module and actuator module.Then an obstacle avoidance system of the smart wheelchair is designed according to actual operating environment. It includes the obstacle avoidance monitor system, obstacle avoidance information processing system, and obstacle avoidance control strategy. The choice of external sensors and the pretreatment of environmental data are introduced, and the obstacle avoidance behavior of smart wheelchair is designed according to the environmental category.We study multi-sensor fusion based on fuzzy control. Multi-sensor fusion method is briefly presented, which is mainly about the obstacle avoidance ability of smart wheelchair based on fuzzy control. This establishes the foundation for avoidance simulation.Finally, a simulation of smart wheelchair obstacle avoidance based on fuzzy control is conducted by using MATLAB. Obstacle avoidance algorithm based on fuzzy control presented in this article can be well applied to the real-time obstacle avoidance of smart wheelchair, which has practical value.