Applied Mechanics and Materials Submitted: 2016-02-15

ISSN: 1662-7482, Vol. 852, pp 788-793 Revised: 2016-06-09

doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.852.788 Accepted: 2016-06-10
© 2016 Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland Online: 2016-09-07

Low Cost Battery Operated Vehicle Using Joystick Control for

Physically Challenged

R.Prashaanth*,a, S.L.Sindhu*,b,S.Veena*,c,P.S.Srilakshmi*,d ,P.Saravanan #,e

*
Student, EEE Department, SSN college of engineering, Kalavakkam, Tamilnadu, India.
#
Assistant Professor, EEE Department, SSN college of engineering
Rajiv Gandhi Salai, Kalavakkam, Tamilnadu, India.
a
[email protected] ,b [email protected] ,c [email protected],d
[email protected] [email protected]

Keywords: Motorized, Automated wheelchair, Joystick Control

Abstract. Wheelchairs are used by people having difficulty in walking due to disability or some
illness. The wheelchairs can either be self- propelled or can be moved by using the torque
developed from the electric motors fitted to the wheels. The use of automated wheelchairs has
largely increased as it does not require any muscular movement from the user. The various
automated wheelchair models available in the market are of high cost and cannot be afforded by
everyone in need. In this project, we aim to develop a low cost automated wheelchair
Without compromising its reliability, the wheelchair movement is controlled by the user via a
thumb joystick. The control algorithm is implemented by using ATMEGA 328P.

Introduction
According to census 2015, Over 21 million people in India are disabled. This is equivalent to 2.1%
of the population. Among them, over 27.9% suffer due to disability in movement. These people can
however, still lead an independent life without depending on others by using a wheelchair.
Wheelchair are still considered to be the most reliable means of transportation for those suffering
from one or other form of disability. Over these years, it has evolved into various shapes with
additional latest enhancements including its conversion into an automated one[1]. Even though
manually operated wheelchairs are available at a cheaper rate in the market, it demands increased
effort from the user. Automated wheelchairs, on the other hand, demands minimal effort from the
user which helps them save a lot of energy. Hence, automated wheelchairs are always a better
option. However, these automated wheelchairs are a bit expensive and cannot be afforded by
everyone. This paper focuses on developing an automated wheelchair that is both economical and
reliable which could be afforded by all the people in need. The organization of the Section I
discusses about the block diagram of the proposed model. Section II discusses about the
mechanical setup used in detail. Section III and IV contains the flowchart and details about the
control operation implemented respectively.

Objectives

The objectives of this research work are formulated as follows:

1. To build a light weighted wheelchair which is capable of carrying upto 100 kgs . Convert it
into an electric wheelchair.
2. Make it automated by designing a special algorithm to control the vehicle movement using
Joystick.
3. Making the whole setup efficient and cost effective.

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 Applied Mechanics and Materials Vol. 852 789

Block Diagram

Fig. 1.Block diagram

Fig.1 shows the block diagram of the proposed system with its various components and their
connections. As shown in the block diagram, the wheelchair movement is controlled using a
joystick. When the user moves the handle in a specific direction, the input is given to the arduino
which then controls the motor movement through the optocoupler.

Mechanical Setup

Wheelchairs available in the market are either foldable or non-foldable. Only non-foldable
wheelchairs are suitable for the proposed system, as the motor setup is needed for powering the
wheels. The motors are placed in a straight line so that they have same axes of their shafts. The
motor setup is placed at the rear part of the wheelchair. Therefore, in order to balance the weight on
both sides the battery is placed in the front [2]. The setup is placed on a steel bar in order to sustain
the vibrations of the motor, as the chain may disconnect due to high vibrations. In order to produce
a very high torque, motor shaft is connected to a small gear and the wheel is connected to a larger
gear. This way, the motor speed is reduced and the required torque is achieved. To make it
economical, wheelchairs made of steel are used which can withstand a maximum load of 100 kgs.

Fig. 2.Gear setup

The gear setup from an old bicycle is welded to the motor and the wheel as shown in fig.2. The
wheels in these chairs are made up of high quality rubber which makes them more reliable. The -
wheelchair setup containing the motors and battery in place were designed using the Computer
Aided Design (CAD) software. The gear ratio is selected as per the speed requirement [3].

Motor. For transportation purposes, IC engines are most commonly used as these are more
economical. However, these are not taken into consideration for this work, as they are bulky and
also affect the environment with air pollution. Electric motors are hence preferred. These include
AC and DC motors in general. Since alternating energy cannot be stored, AC motors requires the
vehicle to be static for supplying constant power. On the other hand, DC motors can be powered
790 Mechanical Engineering Design

from the battery which meets the requirement of the system. The wheelchair is always started with a
load. Hence, DC Series motor which provides a high starting torque is used [9]. Speed control of
this type of motors is also easier. In order to determine the power of the motor used, the calculation
of the required Revolutions Per Minute (RPM) and the torque are needed.

Speed and Torque Calculation

• Radius of the wheel including the hand rim is, r wg = 17.6 cm.
• Speed of the wheelchair must be around 10-15 Km/Hr.
• Circumference of the wheel= 2*3.14*rw =221.68 cm.
• The wheel has to cover a distance of 16,666.7 cm in a minute to travel at the required speed.
Maximum speed of the output gear is 75 RPM.
• Average weight to be lifted is m avg= 80Kgs.
• Radius of input gear r mg = 3cm.
• Torque required for the output gear is
m avg *9.81*r mg = 23.54 Nm.
• This torque is shared between two motors.

Fig. 3. Motor setup

Battery. In building the wheelchair as a stand-alone vehicle, a battery within the wheel chair setup
is desired. In terms of capacity, lead acid batteries are considered to be most efficient ones. Also,
these batteries can be easily charged by using a normal 12 volt regulated power supply. These are
generally used in automobiles such as bikes, cars etc. Automobile batteries are generally classified
into two types, namely, Engine starter and deep cycle batteries. Deep cycle battery is used in our
project as the battery has to supply power continuously for a certain period of time [4].

Due to the high power of the motor, the current drawn by the motor is also high. Hence a battery of
high capacity such as 40Ah, as shown in fig.3, is required in order to run the wheelchair
continuously for a few hours without charging. Lead acid batteries can be easily charged by using
normal 12 Volt regulated power supply. A voltage regulator is designed to maintain a constant
voltage level of 5V in the microcontroller unit. This regulator can be designed to have either a
negative feedback or a feed forward system.
In order to charge the battery from the ac supply directly, a bridge rectifier circuit with capacitor
filter is also designed.

Flowchart

In the flowchart shown in fig.4, the variables X1 and X2 represent the tolerance values of centre
position in X co-ordinate. Similarly, variables Y1 and Y2 represent the tolerance values of centre
position in Y co-ordinate. Motor 1 represents the motor attached to the wheel on the left side and
motor 2 represents the motor attached on the right side of the wheel.
 Applied Mechanics and Materials Vol. 852 791

Fig. 4. Flowchart of the wheelchair control

Control operation

This section discusses in detail about the microcontroller board used, joystick control and pulse
width modulation technique which is used to control the speed of the motor.

Arduino Controller

Fig. 5. Arduino

Arduino is an open source single core programmable Microcontroller board. The processor operates
on a 16 MHz quartz crystal. It has 32 KB flash memory and SRAM of 2 KB. It has 6 analog input
pins, 14 Digital input/output pins, out of which 3, 5,6,9,10,11 pins provides 8-bit PWM output. The
board requires the supply from 4-20 Volts. The board is easily communicable through computers
using UART via USB. The main advantage of Arduino is that it is programmable through Arduino
IDE. ArduinoR3 UNO as in Fig.5 which has ATMEGA328P is most economical and a compatible
one for this work.

Joystick. Selection of joystick is crucial, as currently people use sophisticated and expensive
joystick due to their high precision and user friendly nature. It is a device which consists of a
movable potentiometer. It reports the change in direction or angle of movement by variation in its
voltage. Due to its precision and speed control capabilities, analog electronic joysticks are preferred
over its digital counterparts and hence the proposed system includes a 2-D analog thumb joystick.
Two potentiometers, each of 10K are placed in such a way that the movement of the thumb changes
the resistances of the potentiometers which is used to calculate the movement along the X and Y
axis [6].The change in resistance alters the voltages at the Xout and Yout pin of the sensor. This is
792 Mechanical Engineering Design

sensed by analog pins A0 and A1 and is digitalized by an 8-bit ADC in ATMEGA 328P chip in the
range of 0-1023 decimal values. The movement of the thumb is transformed using an algorithm for
four specific directions front, right, left and back.

Motor Control. The DC series motors are attached to the wheel on both sides which is connected
in such a way that they are parallel to the battery. The speeds of these motors depend on the voltage
supplied to them and the best method to control their speed is by pulse width modulation technique.
Pulse width is changed by switching “on” and “off” the power switch used, depending on the
triggering signals from the microcontroller unit. The average value of the DC voltage is then
applied to the motor [7]. Fig.6 shows the PWM pulses that are generated by varying the duty cycle.
The x-axis represents the time period “t” and y axis represents the “amplitude” of the pulses. Power
switch used in this case is a high power MOSFET. MOSFET is chosen for its capability to handle
surge current safely. N-Channel MOSFET is used as they are suitable for high frequency DC
switching applications.

Fig. 6. PWM Pulses

The average DC output voltage is given by,

Ton ∗ Vin
Vout = (1)
Ton + Toff

Where, Vout = Voltage applied to motor

Vin = Voltage from the battery
Ton = On Time of the switch
Toff = Off Time of switch
The transient On-Off time which depends on the gate capacitance is controlled by varying the
time constant of the circuit, such that they do not affect the switching frequency of power switch.
Gate resistor Rg is calculated by using,

Rg
ton = − Rsource
Vgate
C gate * ln(1 − )
Vsource (2)

Where, ton = Turn “ON” time of the power switch

Rg = Gate resistance
Cg= Gate capacitance
Vg= Voltage applied to the gate
Vsource= Source voltage
Rsource= Source resistance
 Applied Mechanics and Materials Vol. 852 793

The microcontroller produces output signals in the range (0-5V) which is passed through a signal
conditioning circuit. As the motor driver circuit is of high power, isolation of the microcontroller
circuit from the driver circuit is necessary. Isolation is also required as the motor’s noise may affect
the digital signals. Optocouplers are the most economical for isolation but they do not support high
frequency applications [8]. Optocouplers consists of a LED and a light sensing solid state device in
the same IC. In this project, 10 – 20 kHz is the switching frequency and hence, high speed
optocouplers HCPL-3120 from Avago Technologies have been used.

Conclusion
In this paper, design of an automated wheelchair which is both economical and highly reliable is
presented. It is made with all the sophistication at low cost and the setup can be operated at different
loads. This system can be enhanced with the usage of a Global Positioning System (GPS) in the
wheelchair. Also, Obstacle detection could be done by introducing an ultrasonic sensor in the setup
where the speed can be varied depending on the output from the sensor. In addition to that, adaptive
cruise control (ACC) could also be implemented in the vehicle and a solar panel may be used to
charge the battery via a MPPT power controller which would further increase the efficiency of the
wheelchair.

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