Electric compass aided global positioning system navigation for powered wheelchairs

Abstract

Powered wheelchairs are an important mobility aid for the elderly and for persons with disability. According to World Health Organization statistics, most of the accidents were due to personal mistakes; if there is an auto-navigating system such as auxiliary, mistaken manipulation will decrease efficiency. This study attempted to improve the global positioning system (GPS) navigation of electric powered wheelchairs (EPWs) through the addition of an electric compass (EC) and tested the navigation of EPWs with EC-aided and non-EC-aided GPS navigation along a 25 m road. According to these tests, the use of the EC significantly reduces the errors in GPS navigation during movements such as go straight ahead, turn right and turn left. Therefore, the navigation reduced the error of the expected trajectories with the EC-aided navigation.

Keywords:

• Electric powered wheelchair
• GPS
• navigation
• electric compass
• rehabilitation engineering

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the support of ‘The curriculum simulation projects at Tungnan University for the school system links of the technological and vocational education’, Ministry of Education, and project number NSC 92-2218-E-236-001, National Science Council, Taiwan.