Sistema de controle de cadeira de rodas para portadores de tetraplegia

Abstract

Assistive technologies are ways of adding quality of life to people with disabilities, providing their basic accessibility rights. This project seeks to add assistive technology, focusing on people with quadriplegia, in the development of a motorized wheelchair controlled only by head movements. The sensing devices are based on inertial sensors, which capture the orientation of these movements and are sent via wireless to a proportional, integral and derivative (PID) algorithm that uses the orientation of the chair as feedback to the controller. A low-cost wheelchair model was retrofitted with electric motors and an inverter in full-bridge topology for direction and speed control. An electronic controller based on the ESP8266EX microcontroller was developed, responsible for operating the motors, measuring sensors and performing communications. The PID controller proved to be sufficient in the operation of the plant, even with the non-linearities imposed by the constructive restrictions of the prototype.