An embedded robotic wheelchair control architecture with reactive navigations

In this paper, we propose a robotic wheelchair control architecture for reactive navigations to improve safety. The proposed solution is developed based on the XScale embedded platform and real-time embedded Linux. A touch panel is used to display useful information for users. In addition, reactive navigation techniques of mobile robots are developed by combining the obstacle detection sensor information to perform collision free navigations where the obstacle detection sensor uses a laser range finder and the reactive navigation uses the artificial field potential (APF) approach. The collections of obstacle information and realizations of APF navigations are implemented as device drivers in the kernel space to improve real time performance, as well as to reduce the computational loads of graphical user interface (GUI) in the user space. In addition, the modules of power monitoring, travel distance counter and drive speed counting are also developed as device drivers. Consequently, the proposed robotic wheelchair control architecture has the features of real-time performance, simple architecture, high reliability, and safety. Meanwhile, the device drivers and GUI are all developed as open source codes, and they are easy for integrations. Finally, a robotic wheelchair prototype is produced in our laboratory for experimental validations of the embedded robotic wheelchair control architecture, as well as for the evaluations of reactive navigations.