Intelligent Gesture Controlled Wireless Wheelchair for the Physically Handicapped

Robots of the future should communicate with humans in a natural way. Hence, we are especially interested in hand motion based gesture interfaces. The purpose of this study was to present a reliable means for human-computer interfacing based on hand gestures made in three dimensions, which could be interpreted and adequately used in controlling a remote robot's movement. In this paper we discuss the development of a novel architecture of an intelligent wheelchair working on wireless hand gesture control and not by the usual method of keypad for the physically handicapped people. Unlike others before it, this project also has a distress call system (GSM) to alert the concerned people or family in times of necessity for the person, by the person himself/herself from an alert switch or when there is any sudden detection of edge or staircase during backward motion, thus saving the chair from accidents. The locomotion of the wheelchair is controlled by a MCU (microcontroller). The physically handicapped people will have the option of controlling the system through hand gesture wirelessly from ranges up to several meters and will have the independence of using the wheelchair without the help of any other people.