Integration of Smart user interfaces in the Navigation System of Powered Wheelchairs

This paper presents a navigation system that extends the use of Electric Powered Wheelchairs (EPWs) to people with upper limbs impairments that prevent them the control of a traditional joystick-driven EPW. To achieve this aim, an Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system and a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) have been introduced to enable the user to asynchronously perform and send the control commands to the navigation module, according to her/his limited residual capabilities. Moreover, a shared-control algorithm has been developed to translate the user’s guidance wishes into directions of motion that maximize the security and minimize the physical and cognitive effort for the user. A preliminary analysis of the proposed navigation system showed satisfactory results in terms of security and fulfillment of the user wishes