Conception et simulation d'une commande à retour d'effort pour fauteuil roulant électrique

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to evaluate the interest of a new control interface for powered wheelchairs, a force feedback joystick, intended for people with severe motor disabilities which have difficulties to pilot their wheelchair in an usual way. This joystick will have to be implemented on a "smart" wheelchair provided with telemetric sensors. The force feedback is calculated according to the proximity of the obstacles and assists the user, without forcing him, to move towards the free direction. The first chapter of the report is a state of the art on the smart wheelchairs, on the control modes in teleoperation, on the haptic interfaces in robotics and on the modelling of piloting tasks. The second chapter describes the design of a simulator of wheelchair piloting intended to test new functionalities. The third and final chapter relates to a set of experimental results aiming at concluding on the interest of the force feedback for wheelchair piloting and on the choice of its calculation algorithm. The parameters tested are in particular the configuration of the environment (corridor, doors passages, free space ?) and the kinematics of the wheelchair (front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive)