Designing an Intelligent Rehabilitation Wheelchair Vehicle System Using Neural Network-based Torque Control Algorithm

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel intelligent wheelchair vehicle system that enables upper limb exercises, lower limb standing exercises and rehabilitation training in a daily life. The proposed system, which can be used to prevent at least the degeneration of body movements and further atrophy of musculoskeletal system functions, considers the characteristics and mobility of the old and the disabled. Its main purpose is to help the old and the disabled perform their daily activities as much as they can, minimizing the extent of secondary disabilities. In other words, the system will provide the old and the disabled with regular and quantitative rehabilitation exercises and diagnosis using the wheelchair-based upper/lower limb rehabilitation vehicle system and then verify their effectiveness. The system comprises an electric wheelchair, a biometric module to identify individual characteristics, and an upper/lower limb rehabilitation vehicle. In this paper the design and configuration of the developed vehicle is described, and its operation method is presented. Moreover, to verify the tracking performance of the proposed system, dangerous situations according to biosignal changes occurring during the rehabilitation exercise of a non-disabled examinee are analyzed and the performance of the upper/lower limb rehabilitation exercise function depending on muscle strength is evaluated through a neural network algorithm.