Microcontoller Based Gesture Controlled Wheelchair Using Accelerometer

“Speech” and “gestures” are the expressions, which are mostly used in communication between human beings and for Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Recent development promises a wide scope in developing smart control systems. We present an integrated approach to real time detection, gesture based data glove approach which controls the wheelchair using hand movements. The paper proposed a microcontroller based system to control the wheelchair using low-cost and small 3-axis wireless accelerometers. The system is divided into two main components: Gesture recognition module with Micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) sensor and wheelchair control. In the gesture recognition module the heart of the system is microcontroller. The MEMS sensor which is connected to hand, is an 3-axis accelerometer with digital output (I2C) that senses the angle of the hand, i.e. according to the tilt of hand it gives voltages to microcontroller. The wheelchair control unit is controlled using PC89C52 controller. The four proposed movements that achieved: are stop, backward, forward, left and right. Finally, the results of some tests performed with the controlled system are presented and discussed.