Head Gesture Based Control of Wheelchair for a Paralysed Person in an Indoor Environment

Abstract: This paper implements & develops a wheel chair control for the physically challenged by employing head gesture recognition using MEMS technology. Tremendous advances have been made in the field of wheelchair technology; however, even these significant advances haven’t been effective in helping unassisted quadriplegics to navigate the wheelchair. Here, a simple cost effective wheelchair is developed which can be controlled by simple head gestures for directions like left, right, front, and back. An accelerometer MEMS sensor is used to control the wheelchair through head gestures made by the impaired person and moves accordingly. This paper also presents the experimental results on the movement responses of the developed wheel chair with patients of varying weight.

Keywords: Micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), wheelchair, quadriplegic, Gesture