Transformable Smart Wheelchair with IoT Integration

STORY:

PROBLEM: People with mobility impairments need to be monitored by people. My Grandmother had her left leg removed, from that day my grandma uses a stick as her support when ever she moves around. sometimes which walking she suddenly falls down and stays there until someone comes to help, its not only with my grandmother most of them with mobility impairments have problems with moving around, they fall many of the times if there are no one to catch them. The underlying cause is that at that time they fall they are no one to help them.

SOLUTION: we can create a smart watch to addresses this issue we can add a smart sensor that detects fast dynamic motion to detect falls and notifies family members so that they can come and help as soon as possible .

FEEDBACK FROM CONTEST MASTERS:
I appreciate your concern for your grandmother’s safety. It’s true that some people with mobility impairments may be at risk of falls, and it’s important to take steps to mitigate those risks. However, people with mobility impairments are also capable of living independently. There are many assistive devices and technologies available that can help people with mobility impairments stay safe and independent. For example, some wheelchairs come with built-in fall detection systems that can alert caregivers if the user falls. In addition, many people with mobility impairments choose to live active lives and participate in a variety of activities. It’s important to strike a balance between safety and independence."


Based on the feedback received from the contest masters review I decided on building a wheelchair with fall detection and home automation functionality.

The main master controller is unihiker and using its accelerometer and gyroscope the wheelchair can be controlled, and whenever a fall occurs then the unihiker recognizes it and sends a signal to the esp8266 which is inside the wheelchair and is connected to blues note carrier A, which triggers an event and that event is routed to Twilio messaging API through which the family members are informed through SMS about the fall. There is even an external esp8266 connect to relays which are connected to home appliances which are then controlled by the unihiker, using the GUI buttons provided, and my favorite functionality is the option to convert the wheelchair to stretcher which can be very useful for letting mobility impaired people to lay on bed and get up from bed.

Circuit Connections:

• Use the above figure to rig up the circuit
• The Communication is done via UDP protocol.

Unihiker master controller:

The Unihiker is the center of all the controls of the wheelchair.

After connecting unihiker to your computer device go to the webpage

10.1.2.3

• Go to service toggle and open the jupyter notebook
• Copy the Wheelchair.ipynb code from the code provided, change the ip addresses of the other devices and run the code while the unihiker is connected.
• make sure the unihiker and other devices are connected to the same wifi, before getting their IP address.

SOS and Fall Detection using esp8266 and blues notecard:

• We will be using I2C communication for this.
• After connecting the notecard to esp8266 we will have to install the Blues notecard library
  Notecard Quickstart - Blues Developers
  You can follow this documentation to set up blues notecard
  I will be using the Wifi notecard as the cellular notecard does not work in India, you can use the cellular module as it provides GPS functionality.
• Copy the blues.ino code change the Wifi
  .

• Now go to Notehub and create a new project.

• Copy product UID and paste it in the code and dump the code into the esp8266.
• wait for it to run the first time the check the notehub weather its connected.
• Now its time to add the routes
• First create a twilio account and the API key

• Select Twilio and get accountSID, Auth token and from number from Twilio account
• Fill the details in the Twilio add desired message
• Go to filters > Notefiles> select notefiles and select emergency.qo for SOS signal.
• repeat the same for fall detection except this time use FD.qo
• The Unihiker is connected with the wheelchair so whenever the unihiker falls down the fall detected signal is sent

Home Automation Using external ESP8266:

• Connect the relays to the appliances you want to control
• Copy and dump the HomeAuto.ino code into this ESP8266
• Replace the IP3 address in unihiker code with this ESP8266's ip address and provide any custom port number as desired

ESP32S3 Sense for car movement using Unihiker motion:

• With the help of inbuilt accelerometer of the unihiker we can detect and transmit the position of the unihiker using which the Wheelchair can be controlled
• The 2 motors are controlled via a l298D motor driver
• The pins are connected to the int 1 to 4 to control the motors additionally the enable pins can be used for speed control.
• Dump the WCcontrol.ion code into the esp32s3
• You might have to holdon the boot button while powering on the esp32s3 in case of error.
• The main power source typically between (7v to 12v) is connected to the motor driver and the Vout of motor driver is used to powerup other devices.

Wheelchair to stretcher functionality:

• We connect 4 servo motors two for the back and 2 for the front whenever we click the gui button in unihiker the servo motors move a total of 180 degree and then the wheelchair becomes a stretcher and when the button is pressed again it gets back to wheelchair mode.

Some prototypes before building the final project:

Initially I built this using a different material but after some time when I picked up the model for testing the material absorbed moisture, so I had to scrape it and make this model again here is the prototype model.

Conclusion:

Building this project was an invaluable learning experience that pushed me to think creatively and develop innovative solutions. Despite facing numerous challenges, I successfully overcame them and now feel confident in the potential to create a real-world model that could significantly improve the lives of people with mobility impairments.

Survey2:

After I got the feedback, I realized that my grandmother uses the stick to walk but there are many people who use wheelchair hence I taught of building a smart IOT wheelchair.

So, I created a smart wheelchair master controller as unihiker which can control home appliances with buttons and control the wheelchair with the help of gesture. The unihiker will always be attached to one arm of the user.

There is a fall detection whenever there is sudden change in motion the fall detection signal is sent to the family members. similarly, there is an SOS button in case of emergency. these both are implemented using blues kit.

Another prominent and my favorite feature is the conversion of wheelchair to stretcher. There are people who have trouble getting in or out of bed so the stretcher option places the individual on the bed and then slowly slide back placing the user on bed which i feel is a very innovative and interesting idea and would work more on it in the future