Development of a realistic simulator for robotic intelligent wheelchairs in a hospital environment

Abstract

Nowadays one can witness the increase of the world population carrying some kind of physical disability, affecting locomotion. With the objective of responding to numerous mobility problems, various intelligent wheelchair related projects have been created in the last years. The development of an Intelligent Wheelchair requires a lot of testing due to the complexity of the algorithms used and the obligation of achieving a failproof final product. This paper describes the some need for an Intelligent-Wheelchair specific simulator as well as the requirements of such a simulator. The simulator implementation, based on "Ciber-Mouse" simulator, is also described with emphasis on analyzing the limitations concerning intelligent wheelchair simulation using this adapted simulator. The changes applied on the existing software and the difficulties of robotic simulation development are described in detail. Experimental results are also presented showing that not only the simulator reveals flexible simulation capabilities but, also, enabled to validate the algorithms implemented in the physical intelligent wheelchair controlling agent. © 2010 Springer.