Design Considerations for a Personalized Wheelchair Navigation System

Author

Dan Ding ; Parmanto, B. ; Karimi, H.A. ; Roongpiboonsopit, D. ; Pramana, G. ; Conahan, T. ; Kasemsuppakorn, P.

Author_Institution

Univ. of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh

fYear

2007

fDate

22-26 Aug. 2007

Firstpage

4790

Lastpage

4793

Abstract

Individuals with mobility impairments such as wheelchair users are often at a disadvantage when traveling to a new place, as their mobility can be easily affected by environmental barriers, and as such, even short trips can be difficult and perhaps impossible. We envision a personalized wheelchair navigation system based on a PDA equipped with wireless Internet access and GPS that can provide adaptive navigation support to wheelchair users in any geographic environment. Requirements, architectures and components of such a system are described in this paper.

Keywords

Global Positioning System; Internet; biomedical communication; handicapped aids; microcomputer applications; notebook computers; radionavigation; GPS; PDA; environmental barriers; geographic environment; mobility impairments; personalized wheelchair navigation system; wireless Internet access; Buildings; Communications technology; Geographic Information Systems; Global Positioning System; Intelligent sensors; Internet; Navigation; Roads; Wheelchairs; Wireless communication; GPS; Wheelchair users; accessibility; environment barriers; wheelchair navigation; Disabled Persons; Equipment Design; Humans; Motor Activity; Personal Autonomy; Quality of Life; User-Computer Interface; Wheelchairs;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2007. EMBS 2007. 29th Annual International Conference of the IEEE

Conference_Location

Lyon

ISSN

1557-170X

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-0787-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IEMBS.2007.4353411

Filename

4353411