EEE student project gets funding from KSCSTE

A student project from the EEE Department titled “MEMS based electronic wheelchair” got funding from Kerala State Council for Science, Technology & Environment (KSCSTE).

The project has Amalnath K H, Arya P M, Georbin George, Sreelekshmi Ramdas and Swetha C V, all students of BTech (EEE, 2013 admissions batch), as Student Investigator(s) and Mr. Arun Xavier (Assistant Professor of EEE) as the guide.

Electric wheelchairs are designed to aid paraplegics. Unfortunately, these cannot be used by people with higher degree of impairment, such as quadriplegics, i.e. people who, cannot move any of their body parts, except their head due to age or illness. Medical devices designed to help them are very complicated, rare and expensive. In the project, a microcontroller based system that enables standard electric wheelchair, controlled by head motion is demonstrated. The system comprises of electronic and mechanical components.

As part of the project, a novel head motion recognition technique based on accelerometer data processing was designed. The system can be used with several different types of standard electric wheelchairs which could be controlled by tilts in accelerometer system. Moreover this makes a person self-reliable and confident, since it makes the necessary movements without the help of other people.