Date of Award

2013

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Committee Chair

Raymond A. DeCarlo

Committee Co-Chair

Milos Zefran

Committee Member 1

Michael D. Zoltowski

Abstract

This thesis investigates movement of an electric wheelchair as a wheeled mobile robot (WMR) with a battery rechargeable through regenerative braking.The WMR has two wheels, each of which can propel or brake. This leads to four modes of operation: propel-propel, brake-brake, propel-brake, and brake-propel. Braking can be either done by a propelling wheel using negative torques or by regenerative braking which also applies a negative torque.

The thesis begins with a presentation of the WMR model. Performances Indices (PI) are introduced as metrics for specific driving scenarios. For almost all scenarios, the PI is used in a model predictive control (MPC) strategy for the following set of scenarios with and without noisy measurements on the distance to a wall which simulate a noisy sensor measurement for:

-a wall following scenario

-a wall cornering scenario

-a combined scenario

Results of a combined scenario with Parkinsonian noise on distance to the wall measurements and velocity with and withoutthe use of a notch filter are presented and interpreted.

Finally Parkinsonian noise is imposed on a joystick wheelchair control scenario with and without the use of a notch filter.

The central result of this thesis is to erase the Parkinsonian tremor from the input of the joystick of a electric wheelchair to improve the life quality of disabled users.

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