Sensor-based dynamic trajectory planning for smooth door passing of intelligent wheelchairs

Traditionally, it is difficult for elderly and disabled people to control a wheelchair passing a narrow doorway manually. This paper presents a dynamic trajectory planning algorithm for wheelchairs to pass a door smoothly and automatically. It is a sensor-based approach in which two laser rangefinders are deployed in the wheelchair for real-time door detection. To generate smooth trajectories that enable a wheelchair to pass a door perpendicularly, Bézier curve based trajectories are calculated repeatedly during the whole course of door passing. The proposed approach is tested on a real wheelchair and the experimental results are presented to show the good performance and effectiveness of our proposed automatic door passing strategy.