A Control System for Robots and Wheelchairs: Its Application for People with Severe Motor Disability

There is a large number of people with disabilities that involve severe reduction of mobility, such as tetraplegia, brain stroke or vascular brain damage. These people usually have great impairments which prevent them from performing their normal daily activities. For our society, this fact means a great effort in cares and specialized attention that, in most cases, involves caregivers assistance dedicated almost exclusively to these patients. Although only a small part of the disabled population can be included in these types of injuries, trying to solve or minimise the problems associated with severe motor disabilities is an especially difficult challenge for research and development in Rehabilitation Technologies (RT). The Laboratory of Electronics and Bioenginnering (LEB) of the University of Valladolid, to which the article authors belong, has been working since 1995 on the development of practical systems in this field. Although, currently, it is impossible to find an effective medical solution for these disabilities, the improvement in patients’ personal autonomy should be achieved through technical means. This approach focuses, primarily, on two actions based upon: • The environment. This action consists in modifying the environment to facilitate mobility, interaction with the ambient and communication. • The patient. In this case, the action consists in developing human-machine interfaces adapted to each type of disability and desired functionality. Additionally, it is necessary to implement the corresponding actuators or systems to be controlled, including prosthetics and orthotics. As regards the adaptation of the environment, the implemented solutions have relied, primarily, on laws that promote accessibility, applied to architecture and urban planning. Thus, significant improvements were achieved to facilitate, mainly, the mobility of motor disabled people who use wheelchairs. In this regard, the buildings, the infrastructure planning and the public transport services have been especially taken into account. In order to achieve a suitable ambient, authorities subsidise the reforms in private homes where disabled people live, in some countries (Spain, 2006). Note that this first action, based on the transformation of the environment, also benefits a wider scope of population, such as the elderly or other people with milder motor disabilities.