Towards a safe, low-cost, intelligent wheelchair

Aniket Murarka, Shilpa Gulati, Patrick Beeson, and Benjamin Kuipers. Towards a safe, low-cost, intelligent wheelchair. In IROS Workshop on Planning, Perception and Navigation for Intelligent Vehicles (PPNIV), pp. 42–50, St. Louis, Missouri, October 2009.

Abstract

Unlike most other robots, autonomous personal transports must be designed with a passenger user in mind. This paper examines the integration of three necessary technologies for a robotic transportâin particular, a robotic wheelchair. First, local motion to a nearby goal pose needs to be safe and comfortable for the human passenger. Second, 3D overhangs, drop-offs, steep inclines, and stairs (in addition to pedestrians and walls) need to be accurately modeled and avoided, while curb cuts, drivable ramps, and flat ground should be seen as traversable. Third, the spatial representation of the robot should facilitate infrequent requests for human directions and allow natural directional commands. Furthermore, the sensorimotor system that facilitates spatial reasoning, planning, and motion needs to be cost efficient. As a result, our goal is to create a system that ultimately uses inexpensive wheel encoders and off-the-shelf stereo cameras. In this paper, we overview the three technologies listed above. We then discuss the successes and the current failures of the integration task, both of which motivate future work.

Additional Information

PPNIV copy

BibTeX

@InProceedings{Murarka-ppniv-09,
  author =	 {Aniket Murarka and Shilpa Gulati and Patrick Beeson
                  and Benjamin Kuipers},
  title =	 {Towards a safe, low-cost, intelligent wheelchair},
  booktitle =	 {IROS Workshop on Planning, Perception and Navigation
                  for Intelligent Vehicles (PPNIV)},
  year =	 2009,
  address =	 {St. Louis, Missouri},
  month =	 {October},
  pages =	 {42--50},
  abstract =	 {Unlike most other robots, autonomous personal
                  transports must be designed with a passenger user in
                  mind. This paper examines the integration of three
                  necessary technologies for a robotic transportâin
                  particular, a robotic wheelchair.  First, local
                  motion to a nearby goal pose needs to be safe and
                  comfortable for the human passenger. Second, 3D
                  overhangs, drop-offs, steep inclines, and stairs (in
                  addition to pedestrians and walls) need to be
                  accurately modeled and avoided, while curb cuts,
                  drivable ramps, and flat ground should be seen as
                  traversable. Third, the spatial representation of
                  the robot should facilitate infrequent requests for
                  human directions and allow natural directional
                  commands. Furthermore, the sensorimotor system that
                  facilitates spatial reasoning, planning, and motion
                  needs to be cost efficient. As a result, our goal is
                  to create a system that ultimately uses inexpensive
                  wheel encoders and off-the-shelf stereo cameras. In
                  this paper, we overview the three technologies
                  listed above. We then discuss the successes and the
                  current failures of the integration task, both of
                  which motivate future work.},
  bib2html_pubtype ={Workshop},
  bib2html_rescat ={Autonomous Vehicles},
  bib2html_extra_info ={<a
                  href="http://www.isr.uc.pt/~urbano/WorkIROS09/images/PDF/WorkshopIROS09_Proceedings.pdf">
                  PPNIV copy</a>},
}

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