Implementation of target tracking in Smart Wheelchair Component System

Independent mobility is critical to individuals of any age. While the needs of many individuals with disabilities can be satisfied with power wheelchairs, some members of the disabled community find it difficult or impossible to operate a standard power wheelchair. This population includes, but is not limited to, individuals with low vision, visual field neglect, spasticity, tremors, or cognitive deficits. To meet the needs of this population, our group is involved in developing cost effective modularly designed Smart Wheelchairs. Our objective is to develop an assistive navigation system which will seamlessly integrate into the lifestyle of individual with disabilities and provide safe and independent mobility and navigation without imposing an excessive physical or cognitive load. The Smart Wheelchair Component System (SWCS) can be added to a variety of commercial power wheelchairs with minimal modification to provide navigation assistance. Previous versions of the SWCS used acoustic and infrared rangefinders to identify and avoid obstacles, but these sensors do not lend themselves to many desirable higher-level behaviors. To achieve these higher level behaviors we integrated a Continuously Adapted Mean Shift (CAMSHIFT) target tracking algorithm into the SWCS, along with the Minimal Vector Field Histogram (MVFH) obstacle avoidance algorithm. The target tracking algorithm provides the basis for two distinct operating modes: (1) a "follow-the-leader" mode, and (2) a "move to stationary target" mode.The ability to track a stationary or moving target will make smart wheelchairs more useful as a mobility aid, and is also expected to be useful for wheeled mobility training and evaluation. In addition to wheelchair users, the caregivers, clinicians, and transporters who provide assistance to wheelchair users will also realize beneficial effects of providing safe and independent mobility to wheelchair users which will reduce the level of assistance needed by wheelchair users

Development of an elastic path controller for collaborative robot

Master'sMASTER OF ENGINEERIN

Desenvolvimento de um protótipo e de metodologias de controlo de uma cadeira de rodas inteligente

Tese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 200

Grounding language in spatial routines

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-108).This thesis describes a spatial language understanding system based on a lexicon of words defined in terms of spatial routines. A spatial routine is a script composed from a set of primitive operations on sensor data, analogous to Ullman's visual routines. By finding a set of primitives that underlie natural spatial language, the meaning of spatial terms can be succinctly expressed in a way that can be used to obey natural language commands. This hypothesis is tested by using spatial routines to build a natural language interface to a real time strategy game, in which a player controls an army of units in a battle. The system understands the meaning of context-dependent natural language commands such as "Run back!" and "Move the marines on top above the fiamethrowers on the bottom." In evaluation, the system successfully interpreted a range of spatial commands not seen during implementation, and exceeded the performance of a baseline system. Beyond real-time strategy games, spatial routines may provide the basis for interpreting spatial language in a broad range of physically situated language understanding systems, such as mobile robots or other computer game genres.by Stefanie Tellex.S.M

Natural interactions: an application for gestural hands recognition

Dissertação de Mestrado em Desenvolvimento de Software e Sistemas Interativos apresentada à Escola Superior de Tecnologia do Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco.Este trabalho apresenta um sistema para o desenvolvimento de novas interfaces homem-máquina com foco no reconhecimento de gestos estáticos de mãos humanas. A proposta é auxiliar o acesso a certos objetos para o ocupante de uma cadeira de rodas inteligente, a fim de facilitar a sua vida diária. A metodologia proposta baseia-se no uso de processos computacionais simples e de hardware de baixo custo. O seu desenvolvimento envolve uma abordagem completa aos problemas de visão computacional, com base nas etapas da captura de imagem de vídeo, segmentação de imagens, extração de características, reconhecimento e classificação de padrões. A importância deste trabalho relaciona-se com a necessidade de construir novos modelos de interação que permitam, de uma forma natural e intuitiva, a simplificação da vida quotidiana de uma pessoa com dificuldades motoras.Abstract: This thesis presents a system for the development of new human-machine interfaces focused on static gestures recognition of human hands. The proposal is to give access to certain objects to the occupant of an intelligent wheelchair in order to facilitate their daily life. The proposed methodology relies on the use of simple computational processes and low-cost hardware. Its development involves a comprehensive approach to the problems of computer vision, based on the steps of the video image capture, image segmentation, feature extraction, pattern recognition and classification. The importance of this work relates to the need to build new models of interaction that allow, in a natural and intuitive way, to simplify the daily life of a disable person

Autonomous wheelchair with a smart driving mode and a Wi-Fi positioning system

Wheelchairs are an important aid that enhances the mobility of people with several types of disabilities. Therefore, there has been considerable research and development on wheelchairs to meet the needs of the disabled. Since the early manual wheelchairs to their more recent electric powered counterparts, advancements have focused on improving autonomy in mobility. Other developments, such as Internet advancements, have developed the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT). This is a promising area that has been studied to enhance the independent operation of the electrical wheelchairs by enabling autonomous navigation and obstacle avoidance. This dissertation describes shortly the design of an autonomous wheelchair of the IPL/IT (Instituto Politécnico de Leiria/Instituto de Telecomunicações) with smart driving features for persons with visual impairments. The objective is to improve the prototype of an intelligent wheelchair. The first prototype of the wheelchair was built to control it by voice, ocular movements, and GPS (Global Positioning System). Furthermore, the IPL/IT wheelchair acquired a remote control feature which could prove useful for persons with low levels of visual impairment. This tele-assistance mode will be helpful to the family of the wheelchair user or, simply, to a health care assistant. Indoor and outdoor positioning systems, with printed directional Wi-Fi antennas, have been deployed to enable a precise location of our wheelchair. The underlying framework for the wheelchair system is the IPL/IT low cost autonomous wheelchair prototype that is based on IoT technology for improved affordability

Integrating Vision and Spatial Reasoning for Assistive Navigation

This paper describes the goals and research directions of the University of Texas Artificial Intelligence Lab's Intelligent Wheelchair Project (IWP). The IWP is a work in progress. The authors are part of a collaborative effort to bring expertise from knowledge representation, control, planning, and machine vision to bear on this difficult and interesting problem domain. Our strategy uses knowledge about the semantic structure of space to focus processing power and sensing resources. The semi-autonomous assistive control of a wheelchair shares many subproblems with mobile robotics, including those of sensor interpretation, spatial knowledge representation, and real-time control. By enabling the wheelchair with active vision and other sensing modes, and by application of our theories of spatial knowledge representation and reasoning, we hope to provide substantial assistance to people with severe mobility impairments. Introduction The Intelligent Wheelchair Project is working to build..