Abstract
We develop a new mat sensor to distinguish between a wheelchair and a person. The mat sensor can be utilized for detection a wheelchair goes into dangerous areas. Furthermore, it can intelligently alarm only when there are truly dangerous by using a novel function of distinguishing the situation between a wheelchair and a person. Thus, the proposed mat sensor is very useful in hospitals and nursing facilities. A wheelchair and a person are distinguished by passing through the mat sensor which consisted of pressure sensor units and an acrylic board. Information of the pressure sensor units provided from the wheelchair is different from that of the person. If the wheelchair moves on the mat sensor, the center of gravity position of the wheelchair is almost the same as the position of the direction of movement. However, the center of gravity of the person changes because the person walks by foot with right leg and left leg when the person moves on the mat sensor. The wheelchair and the person can be judged by the difference in the change amount of each center of gravity positions. As a result of experiment using our proposed mat sensor, the good recognition rate is obtained.
