A reconfigurable wheelchair/bed system for the elderly and handicapped

A Reconfigurable Wheelchair/Bed System (RWBS) for the elderly and handicapped is designed. The control system of this reconfigurable wheelchair consists of a main control unit, a motion control unit, a posture adjusting unit, a physiological signal acquisition unit, a sensors processing unit, an image processing unit and an intelligent human-machine interaction (HMI) unit. With the human-machine interaction (HMI) unit, the wheelchair can be used as a common powered wheelchair, adjust its posture so that the user can change his/her body to an ideal position or to a flat stationary bed. One of the distinguished points of this reconfigurable wheelchair/bed system is that it can be docked into the bed frame automatically by just push a button with the help of a visual feedback control unit. The three control modes can be changed via the touch screen. Posture stabilization and trajectory tracking methods for the visual servoing system are exploited and, experiments are also carried out to show the effectiveness.