Use of the analytical hierarchy process to determine the steering direction for a powered wheelchair

Haddad, Malik, Sanders, David, Thabet, Mohamad, Gegov, Alexander, Ikwan, Favour, Omoarebun, Peter, Tewkesbury, Giles and Hassan, Mohamed (2021) Use of the analytical hierarchy process to determine the steering direction for a powered wheelchair. In: Intelligent Systems and Applications: Proceedings of the 2020 Intelligent Systems Conference (IntelliSys) Volume 3.

Abstract

The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is utilized to propose a driving course for a powered-wheelchair. A safe route for a wheelchair is proposed by a decision-making system that aims to avoid obstacles. Two ultrasonic transceivers are fitted onto a wheelchair. The area in front of a wheelchair is segmented to left and right zones. The system inputs are distance to an object from the midpoint of the chair, distance to an object from the left of the chair and distance to an object from the right of the chair. The resulting route is a blend between a provided direction from a user’s input device and a proposed direction from the decision-making system that steers a powered-wheelchair to safely avoid obstacles in the way of the wheelchair. The system helps a disabled user to navigate their wheelchair by deciding on a direction that is a compromise between a direction provided by the sensors and a direction desired by the driver. Sensitivity analysis investigates the effects of risk and uncertainty on the resulting directions. An appropriate direction is identified but a human driver can over-ride the decision if necessary.

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