Synchronized motion control for power-wheelchairs

This paper presents a dual-wheeled synchronized control scheme of a power-wheelchair according to the motion mode of a joystick operated by disabled people. Recently, wheelchairs are required to have the ability to adapt to roads with uneven ground or unexpected obstacles. Therefore, how to simultaneously maintain the speed and direction of a power-wheelchair in an unknown environment is an important issue. To this end, an active synchronized control structure with the PI compensator has been proposed. In this research, the motion of the wheelchair is classified into straight and curved mode based on the joystick operation; meanwhile, the synchronized motion ratio is also calculated by operating a joystick. From analyzing the dynamic behavior of a power-wheelchair, synchronized error of the dual wheels can be derived. In particular, through the design of a PI compensator, the synchronized error between the dual wheels can be reduced actively. Simulations and experiments are both conducted to realize the synchronized control of a power-wheelchair.