ABSTRACT

Head movement electronic wheelchair is a basic wheelchair which is modified into two modes

i.e. either manually or by following the motion of the head.

This type of wheelchair is designed for those patients who are unable to move their limbs and

are dependent on care takers for their movement. So our projects solves the problem to some

extent. The head set is made up of inertial measurement unit (IMU), which sends the position

of the head to the microcontroller Arduino mega 2560. The controller then follows a control

algorithm and sends the commands to the motor driver H-bridge circuit to drive the motors

accordingly.

Old homes, hospitals and bed ridden soldiers are the application of this type of wheelchair.
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INTRODUCTION

This wheelchair is specially designed for those patients who are unable to move their limbs

except their head. This wheelchair is operated by detecting the motion of the head and

providing such paralysed patient, a certain degree of independence and freedom in their

movement. We used accelerometer, one of the components of the inertial measurement unit

(IMU). Accelerometer detects the orientation of the head and send signals to the

microcontroller which is Arduino mega 2560.

The design we proposed is cost effective and simple. No specific calibration is required

before use. Additional characteristic of wheelchair in the hardware design is that it can be

operated in 2 modes i.e. either manually or by using patient head.

Standard wheelchair has been purchased from the market and modified mechanically by

applying helical gears which are coupled with the motors. These gears can be attached and

detached according to the patient’s requirement and that can be done by simply unscrewing a

bolt at the back of the wheelchair.

The main objective is to convert a normal wheelchair available in market into an electronic

wheelchair controlled by head.

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 Block Diagram

Block diagram represents the main components and basic functioning of our project. The

inertial measurement unit is mounted on the headset. Headset consist of four main parts, we

are only using accelerometer in our project.

Accelerometer detects the orientation of the head and sends raw value signals to the

microcontroller which is Arduino mega 2560. It provides ten degree of freedom to the user for

the measurement of a body. Arduino process the information according to control algorithm

we proposed. The processed information is send to the H-bridge to drive the motors

accordingly. If the person moves head towards right the wheelchair right wheel stop and left

wheel began to move in left direction.

Figure 1. Block Diagram

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 PROJECT DESIGN

1. Standard Wheelchair

Figure 2. Manual Wheelchair

The quality of our project design is that any standard wheelchair available in the market can be

converted into an electronic wheelchair.We welded a steel plate at the back of the wheelchair

so that motors can be attached on this steel plate. Also a steel plate in the front bottom is welded

to place the electronic components and batteries.

2. Specifications of Motors

We use two permanent DC motors having 24V 120W and 5 ampere rating and RPM 180. The

reason behind selecting high power rating is because we want our wheelchair to move smoothly

on rough surface or terrains.

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3. Electrical components

Two lead-acid batteries connected in series to make total of 24 voltage, which is the

requirement of our design. Motors attached to these batteries drive the wheelchair according to

the input command. These batteries also provide the power to electronic components which

includes Arduino Mega 2560 controller and the Motor driver circuit (H-bridge circuits). The

function of the H- Bridge is to drive the motors in both clockwise and anticlockwise direction.

The H-bridge we used is Dual channel – dual motor driver module.

Figure 3. 50 A Dual H-Bridge.

4. Mechanical Assembly

Two types of gears most widely available and used are spur and helical gears. Gears having

straight teeth are known as spur gears and they can be fabricated easily. Teeth of the helical

gears are at an angle and are difficult to make in comparison to spur gears. Helical gears have

advantage over spur gears because of the fact that they make less noise.

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 Figure 4. Helical Gears

Helical gears teeth engage smoothly and gradually. They are more durable and run smoothly

on high loads. Gear ratio was set 1:6 means driving gear has one third the teeth as the driven

gear.

Figure 5. Gear Assembly

Mechanical design of wheelchair has been modified in such a way that gears between motors

and shaft can be attached and detached according to user requirement.

Figure 6. Complete Mechanical Design

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This has been done by attaching both motors on single plate attached to the main frame of the

wheelchair and bolt is used to lose or tighten the plate hence changing the gear position

5. Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU)

Figure 7. IMU Sensor

The inertial measurement unit was placed on a headset. The module was fixed on the headset

by using double tape on the hair band. A picture of the head set assembly is represented as:

Figure 8. Headset Assembly

The sensor that we have used for the orientation of the head is an IMU GY-80. It includes an

accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer and a barometer. In our project we are only using

3axis accelerometer (ADXL345).

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6. Microcontroller interface

The microcontroller that we have used in our project is Arduino Mega (2560). The

specifications of microcontroller are as follows:

Microcontroller specs

The controller here gets these readings from the IMU sensor and then translate them using the

control algorithm to determine the movement commands.

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 WORKING OF PROJECT

The IMU sensor attached on the headset gives the movement commands by detecting the

orientation of the head.

Following are the commanding options available for patient.

• Forward command

By tilting his head in forward direction at the angle of 20 degrees

• Stop Command

By keeping the head in straight position

• Right Command

By tilting his head towards right at the angle of 20 degrees

• Left Command

By tilting his head towards left at the angle of 20 degrees

The micro-controller, Arduino Mega 2560, receives new values from the accelerometer after

every 100ms.

• The H-bridge allows both the motors to power up at the same instant and hence

wheelchair moves forward.When forward loop is executed the LPWM pin of H-bridge

of both the left and right motors is set to HIGH hence both wheels start to move in

forward direction.

• When the Stop loop is executed the ENABLE pins for both motors are set to LOW

hence both wheels stop.

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 • When the Right loop is executed the LPWM pin for left motor is set to HIGH and

RPWM pin for Right motor is set to HIGH, Hence wheelchair turns towards right.
• When the Left loop is executed the LPWM pin for Right motor is set to HIGH and

RPWM for left motor is set to HIGH. Hence wheelchair turns towards Left.

Arduino is also powered by the 24 V batteries source. As the microcontroller Arduino Mega

2560 operates on low voltage and current, so a circuit was needed to lower the voltage coming

from the battery to power the controller. This was done by LM7809 regulator IC which steps

down the voltage from 24 V to 9 V.

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 Control Algorithm

Figure 9. Movement Commands

Head tilted forward > 20° Wheelchair moves forward

Head tilted backward < 20° Wheelchair stops

Head tilted right > 20° Wheelchair turns right

Head tilted left < -20° Wheelchair turns left

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 CONCLUSION

Main components used in our project is IMU sensor, Arduino Mega 2560, H-bridge and motors.

Values from the movement of head is given by the accelerometer mounted on the IMU sensor,

micro-controller receives that values and processed it. Theses processed commands are then

send to the h-bridge to operate the motors accordingly. Processing of the commands in the

micro-controller are performed according to our designed control algorithm.

Four commanding action can be performed by patient; forward, right, left, stop. By tilting his

head towards forward wheelchair moves in forward direction and same goes for right and left

command. When person keep his head straight wheelchair stops. In addition by simply unscrew

the bolt on the motor plate so that gears can be detached user can operated wheelchair manually.

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 REFERENCES

[1] Manuel Mazo, Francisco J. Rodríguez, José L. Lázaro, Jesús Ureña, Juan C. García,

Enrique Santiso, Pedro Revenga, J. Jesús García, Wheelchair for physically disabled

people with voice, ultrasonic and infrared sensor control

[2] Gunda Gautam, Gunda Sumanth, Karthikeyan K C, Shyam Sundar, D.Venkataraman ,

“Eye Movement Based Electronic Wheel Chair For Physically Challenged Persons”. [3 ] Prof.

Vishal V. Pande, Nikita S.Ubale, Darshana P. Masurkar, Nikita R. Ingole, Pragati P,” Hand

Gesture Based Wheelchair Movement Control for Disabled Person Using MEMS”.

[4]Mohammed Asgar, Mirza Badra, Khan Irshad and Shaikh Aftab, “Automated Innovative

Wheelchair.”

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