An Electric Powered Wheelchair System using Interactive Learning for Child with Severe Cerebral Palsy

Abstract

The mobility-aid is important for the people with severe disability, especially, the child with sever cerebral palsy. In this article, interactive learning system between human and robot is applied for an electric powered wheelchair of the person with severe cerebral palsy. The user, that is, human, understands how to control wheelchair whose input signal is an acceleration data attached at right foot with feeling wheelchair' movement. The robot, that is, wheelchair, understands user's obscure foot movement using a self organizing map. The effectiveness of proposed interactive learning system was evaluated by the experiments with 10 healthy subjects and a child with severe cerebral palsy.