Interactive gesture interface for intelligent wheelchairs

With the increase in the number of senior citizens, there is a growing demand for human-friendly wheelchairs as mobility aids. To meet this need, we presented an intelligent wheelchair whose motion can be controlled by the user´s face direction. He/she can drive it only by looking in the direction where he/she wants to go. In addition to this human interface, the paper proposes a gesture interface that is available while the user is not riding. He/she can move the wheelchair by gestures. Gesture is a good means to give commands because it can be used in noisy conditions and we would not like to speak loud in some public places. However environments where wheelchairs are used cannot be controlled. This makes gesture recognition difficult. We propose an interactive way to solve this problem. When the wheelchair is not certain about the meaning of a user´s gesture, it guesses the meaning and moves a little accordingly to show its guess to the user. Then it observes the user´s response, judging whether its guess is correct or not. This cycle is repeated until the wheelchair understands the user´s intention