Modified power controller with Arduino for cerebral palsy electric wheelchair control

Abstract

This paper presents a simple motion controller of an electric wheelchair by using a push button panel, Arduino platform and a VR2 modified power electronic drive. The aim of this paper its to replace joystick controller by a push button panel, this solution is easy to use it by the cerebral palsy patient who has problems with coordination in their upper extremities(head and hands) and dystonia states. The speed control of the wheels and change the direction is implemented through a digital pulse-width modulation technique, which is varying with the reference generated, by incremented or decremented push button action. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed solution meets the user requirements in terms of reliability and good driving.