Power Wheelchair Haptic Feedback for Adaptive Navigation Assistance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current motorized mobile systems lack the ability to adapt to the varying abilities and needs of users with different physiological and cognitive conditions, leading to inadequate safety, security, and social independence, as they rely on limited information and periodic adjustments.
Innovation Solution
The integration of advanced software and hardware systems, including sensors for situational awareness, user monitoring, and communication with caregivers and the cloud, along with human-machine interfaces designed to support users with diverse conditions, utilizing new technologies and architectures that enhance sensor fusion and decision-making capabilities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If motorized mobile systems use limited information and periodic adjustments, then device complexity is reduced, but adaptability to varying user abilities and needs deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts control parameters and assistance levels based on real-time sensor data about user physiology and environment. The control system transitions from static, periodic adjustments to continuous dynamic adaptation, allowing the mobility device to respond to changing user needs while maintaining manageable complexity through adaptive algorithms.
Solution Approach 2:
Multiple sensors continuously monitor user physiological states, environmental conditions, and device performance, feeding this information back to the control system. This closed-loop feedback enables real-time adaptation to user abilities and needs, resolving the contradiction between adaptability and complexity by using intelligent feedback processing rather than complex hardware reconfiguration.
2Reliability
If motorized mobile systems integrate advanced sensors and real-time processing, then safety and situational awareness are improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The sensor system is segmented into multiple specialized sensors (collision sensors, proximity sensors, physiological sensors) that each monitor specific aspects of safety. This segmentation allows the complex safety monitoring function to be divided into manageable, independent sensor modules, improving safety through comprehensive coverage while controlling overall system complexity through modular architecture.
Solution Approach 2:
The control system is designed with multi-functional capabilities, processing data from various sensor types and performing multiple functions (collision avoidance, navigation assistance, user monitoring) through a single integrated processing unit. This universality improves safety by comprehensive monitoring while avoiding the complexity of multiple separate control systems.
3Adaptability or versatility
If motorized mobile systems provide comprehensive user monitoring and real-time control, then user independence and experience are improved, but use of energy increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses periodic sampling of sensor data at optimized intervals rather than continuous monitoring, and employs event-triggered control where full processing occurs only when changes exceed thresholds. This periodic and event-driven approach maintains user independence through responsive control while significantly reducing average energy consumption compared to continuous real-time processing.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically changes operational parameters such as sampling frequency, processing intensity, and control aggressiveness based on user needs and environmental conditions. When user independence requires higher assistance, the system increases monitoring and control frequency; when conditions are stable, it reduces energy consumption. This adaptive parameter adjustment resolves the contradiction between user independence and energy use.
Data Source
AI summary
A system for a motorized mobile chair includes a human machine interface (HMI) to receive one or more user inputs, transmit one or more first control instructions in response to the one or more user inputs, receive one or more second control instructions, and provide haptic feedback through the human machine interface to assist user navigation of the motorized mobile chair in response to the one or more second control instructions. One or more sensors generate sensor data about an area proximate to the motorized mobile chair. At least one processor receives the one or more first control instructions, receives the sensor data from the one or more sensors about the area proximate to the motorized mobile chair, determines one or more states of the motorized mobile chair based on the sensor data, generates the one or more second control instructions based on at least the one or more states of the motorized mobile chair and the one or more first control instructions, and transmits the one or more second control instructions to the human machine interface.