Eye Monitored Wheel Chair Control

Quadriplegia is a paralysis cause by illness or injury that results in the partial or total loss of use of four limbs and torso. Researchers suggested that in United State of America, there are 11000 new cases of Quadriplegia occur every year. Great Scientist like Stephen Hawking has been suffering

Project Title

Eye Monitored Wheel Chair Control

Project Area of Specialization

Artificial Intelligence

Project Summary

Quadriplegia is a paralysis cause by illness or injury that results in the partial or total loss of use of four limbs and torso. Researchers suggested that in United State of America, there are 11000 new cases of Quadriplegia occur every year. Great Scientist like Stephen Hawking has been suffering from such kind of disease. The aim of our work is to make lives of such people suffering from this disease easy, simpler and self-reliant. The idea is to create an Eye Monitored Wheelchair Control which allows movement of the wheelchair depending on the patient’s eye movements. We know that a person having Quadriplegia can partially move his eyes and tilt his head. So we want to design such kind of device where a patient sitting on the wheelchair and his/her eyes continuously monitored by camera fitted on a stand in front of patient. When the patient wants to move somewhere he just looks in that direction. The camera is capturing the signal across that direction and sending it towards the controller which is place on wheelchair. The controllers processes the script on OpenCV and instruct the motors to move in that particular direction.

Project Objectives

The aim of our work is to make lives of such people suffering from this disease easy, simpler and self-reliant.In such kind of disease patient completely depend on someone. so we want to design such system by the help of which patient willn't depend on someone. The idea is to create an Eye Monitored Wheelchair Control which allows movement of the wheelchair depending on the patient’s eye movements. We know that a person having Quadriplegia can partially move his eyes and tilt his head. So we want to design such kind of device where a patient sitting on the wheelchair and his/her eyes continuously monitored by camera fitted on a stand in front of patient. When the patient wants to move somewhere he just looks in that direction. 

Project Implementation Method

The patient sitting on the wheelchair will wear a cap. The camera mounted on that cap will continuously monitor his eye.The camera is connected to laptop/ PC through a serial port. The real time video will be streamed in the GUI which we make with the help of OpenCV having visual ranges of X and Y coordinates that correspond to each directional command.When the patient look in a desirable direction the camera capture his direction and send it to the laptop/ PC which will further process the image and create a script along that direction and send that script to the controller which is fitted beneath the wheelchair. The controller run that script and move the motor in such a particular direction.

Benefits of the Project

• Self reliant for Quadriplegia patient.
• Remove the dependancy of Patient.
• Cost Effective.
• This algorithm can be used in security systems where the security is high alert.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

Two motors are used to drive the driving wheels. These motors are coupled with driving wheels and motor will be screwed with the angle iron on each side of body. These motors are operated at 12V and needed PWM to control the speed. Both motors will be controlled by H-Bridge circuits that will be discussed in electronic section.

                     While choosing a motor two things are preferred to consider.

• What is its RPM?
• How much current it draws?

The motor used in our design is 12V DC gear-head lift motor. Its model number is HARMAR ALA61010 PE26176Q. It has the ability to do strong work and is commonly used in variable speed and torque application. Its gear downed system helps to stop it anywhere we want and can accelerate from microcontroller PWM signal. There are two shaft attached on both sides of motor. These motors can lift the weight up to 120Kg easily.

Harmar dc motor is specifically intended for use on lift for either wheelchair or other mobility type scooters.

Cap with Attached Camera

            For making this specially designed cap we used simple and common hand tools that are easily available and are cheaper for making the apparatus cost efficient. For this we have simply used a cap and a webcam that is normally available at every shop now days.

Webcam

        Opened the shutter of the camera and it will be connected to the laptop which will detect eyes. The webcam is so stable that it will detect only the Iris of the eye. A small sized and less weighted camera was our aim so that the camera weight must not exceed too much.

ARDUINO

    

            We have connected ARDUINO UNO as a PWM generator and also a medium between Motor driving circuit and Graphical User Interface (GUI) so that it can execute a command given by a person by the movement of eye ball to the GUI.

H-Bridge

              As steering motors draws 7 Ampere current on full load so it was great challenge to design a motor driving circuit so it can pass such a big amount of current and to reduce power losses so that the battery can run the circuit for maximum time.

   DC Steering Motors

           

             Two DC Steering Motors are connected with both tires of Wheel chair with additional gears for maximizing torque. The two DC Steering Motors are connected with H-Bridge as their driving circuits.    

 Wheelchair

Wheel chair is assembled with installation of additional gears with its own tires which are further connected to steering motors through a chain and the motor driving circuit with batteries is installed beneath the seat of chair. Although a camera is mounted on a cap which will help the person to drive the wheel chair. It will move in four directions like Right, Left, Forward and Backward. There is an additional feature in this wheelchair which is, it can be also be controlled manually.

Final Deliverable of the Project

HW/SW integrated system

Type of Industry

Medical , Manufacturing , Others , Health , Security

Technologies

Artificial Intelligence(AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Robotics, Wearables and Implantables

Sustainable Development Goals

Good Health and Well-Being for People, Gender Equality, Reduced Inequality

Required Resources

If you need this project, please contact me on contact@adikhanofficial.com