Name of Institution: Kumaraguru College of Technology, Coimbatore.
Department: Electronics and Communication Engineering
NI Products Used: NI LabVIEW 2011
Need for A Smart Mobility System:
A study conducted by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, suggests that about 1 in 50 people have been diagnosed with paralysis. Paralysis is loss of muscle function, most often caused by damage in the nervous system, especially the spinal cord. Such individuals cannot lead a normal life and are forced to spend rest of their life time in bed. Hence they are completely detached from the outer world and become psychologically depressed. This made us to come out with an innovative solution of building a system -- ‘Smart Mobility System For Physically Challenged’ especially for paralysed people.
Abstract:
This project ‘Smart Mobility System for Physically Challenged’ aims at improving the lives of physically challenged people with the help of the modern technology. The system is designed with the following features - Eye Controlled Wheelchair, Automatic Navigation System, Automatic Caregiver Follower and Computer Interfacing. The project is designed especially for paralysed people; however this can be helpful for any disabled patient.
Eye Controlled Wheelchair makes use of the patient’s eye movements to control the motion of the wheel chair. The system consists of a Camera, Computer, Control Circuit and Motors. The camera is placed in front of one of the eyes and it constantly captures the image. This image is then sent to a computer system (Laptop or a SmartCam), which runs an image processing program. We have chosen NI LabVIEW for programming and implementing the image processing algorithm. When the patient moves his eyes to his left or right, the program sends command signals to control unit to turn the wheelchair Left/Right. Similarly looking up or down can make the patient to move Forward/Reverse. The communication between the computer and the control unit is achieved using UART link. The control unit on decoding the signal powers the motors using H Bridge connection, thus providing the desired movement.
Automatic Caregiver Follower could be helpful to both the patient and the caregivers who push the wheelchair. The wheelchair can follow the path traced by the person having a beacon device. In this project a program has been presented which can compute the position of the caregiver, who has a beacon device embedded with an accelerometer and a magnetometer and follow the path traced.
Computer Interface is an aid for the physically challenged to operate computer, without using keyboard or mouse. This is achieved using eye movement or voice control. Thus this system is really helpful for paralysed and patients with disability in hands.
Below is the video of our project demostration.....
