Intelligent wheelchair localization in wireless sensor network environment: A fuzzy logic approach

Several researches have been undertaken to assist and help handicapped and elderly people to gain mobility and lead to independent life and particularly those related to smart wheelchairs. In this direction, a localization function can be considered as the main process improving performances in terms of autonomy and mobility. Thus, making a wheelchair intelligent and autonomous allows us to develop new methodologies taking into account the type of handicap, environment dynamics, new communication technologies such as wireless sensors networks (WSN) and recent developed approaches for monitoring and control. The aim of this paper is to propose a fuzzy localization approach for smart wheelchair monitoring and control operating autonomously in WSN environment. The approach allows an online distance estimation of nodes on the basis of a set of experimental received signal strength (RSSI) measures. To test the effectiveness of the developed system, an experiment is designed in this respect.