PCCE PROJECT IS SELECTED AT INDIA INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE FESTIVAL, LUCKNOW

A project on ‘Eye Monitored Wheelchair for Quadriplegics’ completed by the BE Final year Electronics and Telecommunication (ETC) students was selected for presentation at the 4th edition of India International Science Festival (IISF) which is scheduled during October 5th-8th 2018 at Lucknow. The project team consists of Ms Deborah Furtado, Ms Darlene D’mello and Mr Cancio Pereira.

This project reports the preliminary work in developing a robotic wheelchair system that uses eye movements in directing the wheelchair. The purpose of Eye Monitored Wheelchair is to assist quadriplegic people in their daily movements. It provides a great opportunity for the quadriplegic patient to feel a certain amount of independent accessible life. The implemented system will allow control of the wheelchair without assistance from other people.

In this system the wheelchair is based on eye movements. The camera is mounted in front of the user’s eye to capture the image of any one eye (either left or right) and tracks the position of the eye pupil with the implementation of image processing techniques.

According to the position of the eye, the motors attached to each leg of the wheelchair will be directed to move left, right, forward and reverse. A motor driver circuit is used to control the input voltage given to the motor. In addition to this, for safety purpose ultrasonic sensors are mounted in front of the wheelchair to detect the obstacles and automatically stop the wheelchair movement. The Raspberry Pi board controls all the devices mentioned above.

Earlier, the team members won the first place for the projects competition organized by DTE and recently exhibited at the Science exhibition at the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Dona Paula.The team expresses thanks to the Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of Goa for assisting them for their travel and accommodation at Lucknow.