Domestic mobility aid for elderly

• Main Author: Leong, Koi Keat.
• Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/53641
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The author was assigned to a team to participate in the AR&Ts competition 2013 in Singapore. The mission of this competition was to develop creative and innovative projects that would provide social benefits and improves the quality living of people with disability of all ages and the elderly. With that mission in mind, the team had sort out two targeting users who are facing walking disability due to the injuries on the lower body. The 1st challenge was to sort out the method to pick-up and drops the targeting user to/from mobility aid. Due to the setback on their lower body, the two targeting users are unable to get onto a normal wheelchair without any assistant. A mobility aid with a given name of MobyAID was then developed. The design of MobyAID considered the ergonomic and disability of the two targeting users and it was speciality developed for the two targeting user with a minimum ground clearance. Later, the team had decided develop an automated navigating system onto the MobyAID as per request by the two targeting user. The author was given the responsibility of develops the navigation system that capable of moving the MobyAID in a dynamic environment. The author spent about 2 months doing the literature review and study on the programmable software and components. Later, Arduino Microprocessor and Kinect Sensor were selected to carry out the navigating function. Arduino Microprocessor would control the motor driving direction while Kinect Sensor serves as the ‘eye’ for MobyAID. Arduino and Processing software were used to convert the programming code into machine-readable instruction that control the movement of MobyAID. The overall idea of the automated navigating system was it would first respond to any call from user, locate their position and then move toward him/her. After picked up the user, the mobility aid was able to carry the user to the given specific destination. During the progress, obstacle avoidance function is carried out. 3 programmes were developed during the progress. The 1st program was the Kinect hand control vehicle movement. It main purpose is to let the mobility aid ‘see’ the user and locate his/her position and then move toward him/her. The author created a natural interaction between the user and the mobility aid with the help of Kinect Sensor. When a waving command was detected and the mobility aid would respond by moving toward the user. The 2nd program was the obstacle avoidance. The author made used of Kinect sensor to allow the mobility aid to ‘see’ the surrounding. The programming of Obstacle avoidance allows the mobility aid to move freely around indoor area without hitting into wall or obstacle in front of it. The last program is the self localization and navigating program. The author made used of rotary encoder to measure the distance travelled by the mobility aid. An algorithm was created to measure and control the navigating program. All the coordinates of specific indoor locations were pre-set. Once the specific destination was activated, the mobility aid knows where it should heading to. Its initiate position was set as zero. The algorithm was program in such a way that the mobility aid will keep trying to reduce the displacement between its current location and its destination. The mobility aid will keep moving until the displacement reached zero.