Electric wheelchair control with gaze direction and eye blinking

In this research, the electric wheelchair control with gaze direction and eye blinking is proposed. A camera is set up in front of wheelchair user to capture image information. The sequential captured image is interpreted to obtain the gaze direction and eye blinking properties. The gaze direction is expressed by horizontal angle of gaze, and it is derived from the triangle form formed by the centre positions of eyes and nose. The gaze direction and eye blinking are used to provide the direction and timing command, respectively. The direction command relates to the movement direction of electric wheelchair, and the timing command relates to the time condition when the wheelchair should move. The timing command with eye blinking mechanism is designed to generate ready, backward movement, and stop command for the electric wheelchair. Furthermore, to move in certain velocity, the electric wheelchair also receives the velocity command beside the direction and timing command. The disturbance observer based control system is used to control the direction and velocity. For safety purpose, the emergency stop is generated when electric wheelchair user do not focus the gaze direction consistently in specified time. A number of experiments conducted for the electric wheelchair in a laboratory environment. The simulation results indicate the effectiveness of the proposed electric wheelchair system.