Smart Optical Control Wheelchair Won an International Award

Smart Optical Controlled Wheelchair Won an International Award

Having stressful hard work, more Thai people become patients with paralysis or CVA (Cerebrovascu lar Accident) or Cerebrovascular disease or stroke (caused from Cerebral Embolism or Embolic Stroke); it is the third leading cause of death referred to the world record and is also a major cause of severe disability.  

Each year there are new 10-15 million stroke patients worldwide and 5 million of them die while other 5 million one become permanently disabled.

Such patient problem made biomedical engineering has far evolved. Previously, there were wheelchair controlled by brain, or by audio, but lately, there are biomedical engineer team surprised the word by their intelligent invention of Smart Wheelchair Based on Eye Tracking.

Student and lecturer team from Faculty of Engineering, King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang (KMITL), has made Thailand more famous by winning the Silver Award from the global innovation contest: International Contest of Innovation 2017 or iCAN, in Beijing, China, the contest with over 5,000 innovators from 20 countries over the world.

The team from Thailand is the only one team of ASEAN that has been able to win the Silver Award. The team members include:
       Assoc. Prof. Dr. Chuchart Pintavirooj ( http://www.bmekmitl.org/chuchart/), 
       Dr. Wibool Piyawattanametha (http://www.bmekmitl.org/wibool/),  
       Mr. Aniwat Joohong, and
       Mr. Supakorn Suwan.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Chuchart, the Researcher from Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, KMITL, said that his inspiration to have this invention done because Thailand was under movement towards the society of older aged members with more disabled ones. The total number of registered old aged people reached at 2.5 million already while there would have more of no registering ones.

"3-5% of those suffer from paralysis. It is estimated that in Thailand, there are more than new 1,500 cases of paralysis patients per year. Proper wheelchairs are important tool for daily lives of these patients. Most of the electric wheelchairs in the market are controlled only by joystick. "

However, in some cases, for ALS stoke or Parkinson's disease, it is difficult for them to use only common wheelchair. Then researchers have designed the electrically-controlled electric wheelchair of Voiced-Control System and Brain-Control System; however, these two types one often have problematic performance under noisy environment.

Faculty of Engineering team then deals with research and development of Smart Wheelchair based on Eye Tracking, the movement of the wheelchair can be controlled by Eye Tracking technology, the patient just stairs to his or her direction to make his or her wheelchair move toward the direction immediately. The system also has only light weight with friendly operation.

Dr. Wibool, one of the researcher team, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, KMITL, explains about the key components and functions of the electrical circuits for intelligent control with the eye sight or optical control that there are four main parts:

         1.Image Processing Module, 2.Wheelchair-Controlled Module, 3.Appliances-Controlled Module, and 4. SMS Manager Module

"When the Image Processing Module, which has a Webcam and C ++ customized image processing detects the movement of the eye and sends or transfers the signal to Rasberry Pi Microcontroller and synchronizingly connects with the eyeball image which comparatively acts as if it were a Cursor Controller of the Rasberry Pi Screen in system control. In addition to the movement of the eyes, blinking and eye sight movement can also be applied to this system to execute the process like pressing the Enter key on the keyboard.

The Wheelchair-Controlled Module is a combination of two servos that can be driven in 2D and adapted to be matched with the joystick. The wheelchair system can also control devices remotely and communicate with healthcare providers through smartphone messages. "

Mr. Aniwat, young Master student of Biomedical Engineering, one of the team's researchers told about how to use the invented wheelchair; the system installed with the movement sensor to detect the eye movement of the user, it was installed on the display with the command able to be seen clearly.

"On this intelligent electric wheelchair display, there are various symbolic commands to be used by the user. By looking at the symbol to make it work on demand. Users can also link the wheelchair system to a home-based smart home system by using additional varieties of on-screen commands that can be used to remotely control household electric system or electronic appliances such as open - closed doors, electric lamps, air conditioning or TV tuners, as well.

Moreover, it can communicate between patients and healthcare people by sending a message to the smartphone of them to present the patient’s need or warning of emergency"

source:  https://www.posttoday.com/it/547843 

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