Semiautonomous wheelchair based on quarry of environmental information

In this paper, an intelligent wheelchair robot for adaptation to an unknown environment is developed. Environmental information is a key factor to comply to an unknown and/or unstructured environment. Since the environment has an infinite number of modes, the environmental information should be classified into some modes. This paper develops a novel viewpoint of robot motion control based on quarry of environmental information. The robot adapts to the environment based on the remote and contact information. In order to adapt to the remote environment, the obstacle avoidance problem is treated. This kind of robot motion control is based on position control. On the contrary, in order to adapt to the contact information, compliance control is applied to a robot. If the robot collides with the obstacles, the impact force is relaxed by the method, and safety is improved. This controller, on the other hand, is based on force control. In this paper, position control and force control are integrated in the acceleration dimension based on acceleration control. The robust acceleration control is attained by the disturbance observer. Finally, a semiautonomous function is installed for the improvement of human operationality. The numerical and experimental results show viability of the proposed method.