It is a manual wheelchair and its wheel's movement generates some output potential that can be stored in a circuit attached to the wheelchair.
A good friend of mine, Emanuel Lin, is working on such subject. You can give a look at this website http://nrlweb.cs.ucla.edu/people/show/60 . Hope it helps.
There are a lot of solutions depending on what kind of sensors (signal) you will connect: Analogue, pulse, GPS?
A simple one for analogs signals https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10216
But if you needs to connect encoders or GPS maybe a good solution is arduino https://www.adafruit.com/products/243 because have a lot of libraries and codes availables for free.
How about this device?
http://www.robotshop.com/ca/hagisonic-stargazer-localization-system-1.html
You can dig into http://www.hagisonic.com/ for a more detailed description. It requires you to place some markers on the ceiling - hope it's not a problem.
I think:
- The device can store the distance and direction information the wheel chair has traveled within given time.
- Also it can be programmed to find the approximate location if the wheel chair is initialized with a starting location. But i believe it needs intensive programming.
However, the wheel chair must be on its wheels to measure the distance.
- GPS is a common solution but may be expensive.
- Local sensor networks can be a solution.
- Distributed cooperative control and coordination can be solution if there are may wheels chairs. Wheel chairs can sense the location of one another.
A good friend of mine, Emanuel Lin, is working on such subject. You can give a look at this website http://nrlweb.cs.ucla.edu/people/show/60 . Hope it helps.
if you are going the Arduino way and want to have real live data, Telefonica did a gsm/gprs shield together with the Arduino team, and together with gps shields it should be very easy.
https://bluevia.com/en/page/tech.arduino
I did not look into the Software for the GSM/GPRS shield yet but i know that there are people who did localisation based on gms tower signals/gsm cell id
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_tracking
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10329877/how-to-properly-triangulate-gsm-cell-towers-to-get-a-location
If we're talking of an indoor scenario, UWB low-power radar might be a suitable option.
Dear Colleagues,
Thanks indeed for these useful information.We've been digging through them and yet not finish digging......
However, from all the points of view mentioned above, it can now be scoped that
- local network is preferable (because it should be cheaper and it is affordable for us),
-a reference location is where a wheelchair is initialized
-the direction and distance should be recognized in a given time (24 hr is best)
-approximate location is ok
-indoor scenario, different rooms, different floor levels is required ; travel in a given distance of a building is additional required, if possible,
-a wheelchairs can sense the location of the other -- This is beyond what we've planned but it is great if possible.
-simple programming, conventional commands are ok, but avoid intensive programming (because we do not expect that we could be able to do it)
A demo or a kit set is welcomed.
:)
For indoor Solutions you may want to look into the OpenBeacon Project.
With this you can triangulate with basestation a eventual correct position
And each wheelchair can sense if there are beacons nearby
http://www.openbeacon.org/
Thanks Martin, I see, they are good perfectly, and quite costly., not the products themselves but the international shipping.
If only, we could set up a reference point and record a wheelchair's information.....
I had a look in some websites given by the colleagues above -- I see there are something that low-power and can record the distances for 24 hr. with availabe commands or little modification.
The good thing is this is a open source hardware project. You can get all the files needed (the file for the PCBs, the schematics, the partlist and the software running on this things) to make them by yourself (or a local manufacturer).
To the point of recording, as you need to collect the movements of booth tires to calculate the direction you could also collect the energie used for writing this stuff from the movement itself
How many receivers 1, 3 or more should we need for detecting and collecting a wheelchair movement within a given distance and time?
"Location tracking using OpenBeacon Tags can be implemented by running a OpenBeacon firmware that regularly transmits beacon packets. Such packets can then be received by Base Stations in the vicinity (up to 25m, 10m through drywalls)."
but there are also people experimenting with different types of antennas and say that they reached distances of up to 60m outside(direct sight)
http://www.openbeacon.org/OpenBeacon_System
We've been learning a lot from Emanuel Lin' s website, a good friend of Gustavo Mafia who had answered in early time of this question. We also learn from the OpenBeacon, the information from Matin. The suggestions from other colleagues above also helped us to define the scope of the project . In final, we decide to use both approaches for different purposes and places. Anyway, none of us (3) is a professional programmer, we'd like to get help with a demonstrating program, saying, compatible with a Labview. This is for collecting data of the 2 wheels' path and direction of a wheelchair. From the DEMO we will then be running the rest of the project well, hopefully. This is a non-profit project :)
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