- Research Article
- Open Access
An Omnidirectional Stereo Vision-Based Smart Wheelchair
- Yutaka Satoh1Email author and
- Katsuhiko Sakaue1
https://doi.org/10.1155/2007/87646
© Y. Satoh and K. Sakaue. 2007
Received: 31 December 2006
Accepted: 23 May 2007
Published: 25 June 2007
Abstract
To support safe self-movement of the disabled and the aged, we developed an electric wheelchair that realizes the functions of detecting both the potential hazards in a moving environment and the postures and gestures of a user by equipping an electric wheelchair with the stereo omnidirectional system (SOS), which is capable of acquiring omnidirectional color image sequences and range data simultaneously in real time. The first half of this paper introduces the SOS and the basic technology behind it. To use the multicamera system SOS on an electric wheelchair, we developed an image synthesizing method of high speed and high quality and the method of recovering SOS attitude changes by using attitude sensors is also introduced. This method allows the SOS to be used without being affected by the mounting attitude of the SOS. The second half of this paper introduces the prototype electric wheelchair actually manufactured and experiments conducted using the prototype. The usability of the electric wheelchair is also discussed.
Keywords
Authors’ Affiliations
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This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
