IJSTE - International Journal of Science Technology & Engineering | Volume 2 | Issue 10 | April 2016

ISSN (online): 2349-784X

Fuzzy Based Indoor Navigation System for

Physically Disabled
Uma. S.
Department of Electronics & Electrical Engineering
College of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University, Chennai,
India

Gnanamani Sapientia. M.
Department of Electronics & Electrical Engineering
College of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University,
Chennai, India

Abstract
This paper develops a system to aid people who are physically challenged with leg impairment to navigate indoor with ease. It also
aims to provide the traditional powered wheelchair with added features provided with low cost design. The system is divided into
2 units. First part consists of sensors and direction inputs which are interfaced with motors through microcontroller. The obstacle
avoidance scheme is developed based on fuzzy algorithm to prevent accidents. The wheelchair is operated by two DC motors. The
direction keys are used to change the direction of the wheelchair. The other part consists of Bluetooth module connected to
microcontroller to control domestic electronic devices. An android app is built for user interface. Using Relay, we can switch
ON/OFF the electronic devices.
Keywords: Fuzzy, Home Automation, Bluetooth, Zigbee, Control Algorithms
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I.

INTRODUCTION

The people who are suffering with motion impairment problem, chooses an artificial means of locomotion, like wheelchair. The
intelligent wheelchair helps the handicapped and elderly people to live independently in home. But the cost of individual health
care is more expensive. Considering the people with medium and low income to afford such services with basic features is the
main idea of this paper.
The main goal is to develop a wheelchair with autonomous navigation in an unknown environment without hitting any object.
In ancient days wheelchair are self-propelled controlled by users hand rim and electrical power assisted controlled by electric
motors on both wheels. The evolution of technology made the electric powered wheelchair controlled by driving commands
(velocity and direction) through joystick and voice [1]. This paper deals with an electric powered assisted wheelchair with joystick
to control the direction of the wheels. The wheelchair controlled with two DC motors. The controller operates these DC motors
and controls the wheelchair accordingly.
The navigation is performed based on sensor information, behavior based or sensor based approach is analyzed. In which the
wheelchair is derived by direct mapping between sensors and motors. The implementation of fuzzy based reactive control for the
motion of two wheels in an unknown indoor environment with obstacle is performed. The fuzzy driving direction is determined
by the fuzzy rules /algorithm based on the information provided by the joystick and distance to the obstacle measured by the
ultrasonic sensor [1].
To avoid the problem of elderly people to approach the switch to ON/OFF the device, a home automation is provided. The home
automation is achieved through various technologies. This paper adopts the Bluetooth technology, Zigbee for home automation.
The command is given by user from android applications (smart phone) to microcontroller via Bluetooth [2]. The control App to
board connectivity is in Bluetooth and the home automation part of the App is done in Zigbee for longer range.
II. RELATED WORKS
Autonomous navigation of the wheelchair in an uncertain situation is difficult task. To discover the optimal path for the navigation,
various methodologies like Road map building, artificial field potential, fuzzy logic controller, neural networks, genetic algorithms
have been proposed based on both classical and reactive method [3]. They present a free intelligent navigation FIN algorithm
which has two main stages. The first stage is the sub-fuzzy set model uses the proper fuzzy set to find the shortest distance. The
second stage generates the navigation of the vehicle according to the output of first stage.IR sensor and ultrasonic sensors are used
for the obstacle detection and distance measure from the vehicle and obstacle, this measurement is used to find the shortest distance
from the obstacle and take desired decision to reach target. The curve fitting method is used to create a map of unknown
environment based on sensed data. Fuzzy sensor fusion and curve approximation. The ultrasonic sensor and infrared sensor are
used to discover the unknown environment [4].
[5] proposed a logic called Type-2 fuzzy logic applied to better accuracy and smoothness which also provides additional degree
of freedom to handle uncertainties. The main core of this logic is to design the fusion controller to compensate our lack of
information. The controller calculates both linear and angular velocities of the robot in order to separate the distance and angle
between the target and obstacle. Membership function of fuzzy algorithm is optimized in genetic algorithm. When the obstacle is

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detected too close wall following method is activated. The angle compensation method is designed to overcome the deadlock
problem in Ran Zhao experiment. The experiment was tested in MATLAB [6]. Path planning of autonomous robot using fuzzy
logics to avoid obstacle of different shapes in workspace environment as a simulation was done in MATLAB Fuzzy tool box and
analyzed by [7]. [8] suggested Goal seeking fuzzy logic controller (GSFLC) and Fuzzy Logic for Obstacle Avoidance(FLOA) both
work concurrently for the navigation.
Look up table (LUT) based fuzzy system was addressed by [9] to improve the processing speed of a fuzzy obstacle. P/N rule
fuzzy controller, in which positive rule direct the robot to a target and negative rules avoid from colliding with obstacles. The basic
idea is to reduce the processing speed, is to store all membership function data in LUTs in advance and search for membership
degrees in LUTs. [10] developed a solution based on XScale embedded platform and real-time embedded Linux. For collision free
navigation laser range finder and artificial field potential (APF) approach are used. People appreciate the wireless life style. With
the help of never ending evolution of technologies we can built various product according the convenience of consumers [11].
Latha and her team developed a home automation system based on cloud server interfaced using ardunio an android app was
created for user command[12].
Raspberry-Pi card - Nano computer card with ARM processor was experimented with wed sever by Hayetusing android app as
user interface[13] Security system for home main entrance, car door, and domestic appliances was designed using PIC
Microcontroller and Bluetooth technology by Sadeque[14]. On analyzing a various methodology this paper deals with the idea to
build a wheelchair with obstacle avoidance algorithm based on fuzzy and to create an android app for home automation using
zigbee. The microcontroller named NUC140VE3CN, which is a 32-bit microcontroller with embedded ARM cortex with rich
communication interfaces is used to implement the proposed system.
III. IMPLEMENTATION
Control System for Navigation
The idea for control system for indoor navigation deals with setup of wheelchair with obstacle avoidance scheme. The relationship
between the input and output variable is defined by Fuzzy Inference System(FIS).The input is composed of multiple variable like
left senor distance, front sensor distance, right sensor distance. In similar way the output is composed of multiple variables like
right motor direction and left motor direction. One of the fundamental necessity in navigation is path planning. The path planning
has to be designed with care to overcome the obstacle from starting point to destination point.
The collision free path planning is achieved by fuzzy logic based obstacle avoidance and navigation scheme. The application of
the FIS to the user defined membership functions has been adopted with three inputs and two outputs along with two membership
function for each input. The three inputs are the distance from the vehicle and the obstacle provided by ultrasonic sensors placed
left, front, right [14] as represented in figure 1. The ultrasonic sensor ranges from 1cm to 4m. Many researchers have taken up
fuzzy algorithm in robot navigation. Because for real time application fuzzy controller is more suitable. They provide simpler and
more spontaneous method for collision free path planning.
The locomotion of the systems is based on two DC motors positioned at the different sides of the wheels (left and right). The
direction of the motors control independently so that they can take a smooth turns in desired direction. The direction changes in
order to have collision free path planning depends on the sensor values, which is provided by three ultrasonic sensor placed at left,
right and front sides of the vehicle.

Fig. 1: Wheel chair model

Home Automation System

Electronic and Electrical environment includes fans, lighting system, air conditioner, motor, heater etc Remotely accessing and
controlling the electronic appliances includes android application and web application. There are wide range of options are
convenient for home automation system for example Phone based, Wireless control system, Bluetooth, ZigBee and GSM. In this

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paper the fusion of Bluetooth and Zigbee are applied. The command is given by user from android applications (smart phone) to
microcontroller via Bluetooth. The controller then transfers the command from remote unit through Zigbee which enables the user
to switch ON/OFF the devices.

Fig. 2: Block diagram for home automation system

Fuzzy logic Implementation

Obstacle avoidance is the main requirement in autonomous navigation. Both the navigation and obstacle avoidance can be handled
well with the Fuzzy controller. Fuzzy logic based system has the advantage that it admits the perspective nature of sensor based
navigation. The defuzzification is done through Centroid method. Once the obstacle and the distance of the obstacle were
encountered a collision free path can be created [1]. In times of obstacles the wheelchair would take its left or right turn based on
the set of fuzzy rules. However, the result of these rules would not be the velocities applied to the robot motors, but a set of degrees
of membership [14].
As shown in the figure 3 and figure 4 the type of the plot in the membership function is chosen to be Gaussian because it is
essential to achieve smoothness in motion. In order to reduce the complexity only two membership functions are considered for
each sensor input. The two membership functions correspond to input is named to be near and far. They are ranged as 0 - 1.5(near)m
and 1.5 - 4(far)m. The two membership functions correspond to the output is named as Forward and Reverse. To check the
output of the simulation the membership function output was verified for the range as 0-30 for forward action of motor and 30-60
for reverse.

Fig. 3: Membership function for input variables

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Fuzzy Based Indoor Navigation System for Physically Disabled

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Fig. 4: Membership function for output variables

It is quite difficult to control the movement of the wheels independently. Fuzzy commands used to control the left and right
wheels are forward, reverse and stop to turn left the left motor should be in reverse direction and right motor should be in forward
direction. These fuzzy control rules for avoiding collision are given in the Table 1 as taken from [15].
Table 1
Fuzzy Rules for Obstacle Avoidance
L.S

F.S

R.S

L.M

R.M

FAR

FAR

FAR

FWD

REV

FAR

FAR

NEAR

REV

FWD

FAR

NEAR

NEAR

REV

FWD

FAR

NEAR

FAR

FWD

REV

NEAR

NEAR

FAR

FWD

REV

NEAR

NEAR

NEAR

REV

REV

NEAR

FAR

NEAR

FWD

REV

NEAR

FAR

FAR

FWD

REV

IV. RESULT AND ANALYSIS

The correctness of the fuzzy rules are verified using fuzzy Simulink Tool Box. The Sensor values are manually given and analyzed
for every condition. For example as shown in Figure 5 the constant, constant1, constant2 corresponds to the input sensor values
L.S=2(FAR) F.S=2.5(FAR) R.S=1(NEAR). Which means when the left sensor reads 2 and the front sensor reads 2.5 and the right
sensor reads 1, the corresponding outputs are verified using scope.

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Fig. 5: Simulation block for fuzzy condition

According to the condition the output should be L.M=REVERSE which should range from 30-60 which is displayed in the
figure. 6.1 R.M=FORWARD should range from 0-30 which is displayed in figure 6.2.

Fig. 6.1: The simulation output for left motor

Fig. 6.2: The simulation output for right motor

Verification in real time was done by building prototype of wheelchair as in figure 7.

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Fig. 7: Prototype for wheelchair

V. CONCLUSION
This paper has attempted to develop a wheelchair operated by joystick with obstacle avoidance algorithm based on fuzzy logic and
a home automation system controlled using Bluetooth technology which is yet to be implemented. The proposed control system is
capable of achieving collision free and smooth navigation. The experiment is tested using the prototype in an indoor environment
to verify the efficiency of the algorithm. Our future work is to increase the efficiency of the algorithm so that it can make the
navigation safer and suitable for outdoor.
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