Earlier this year I decided to turn one of my old wheelchairs into a robot. I really had no idea where to start fortunately I came across a website called Critical Tinkerers who are a student group out of Iowa State University. They had done exactly what I wanted to do and the best thing is they published exactly how to do it. It involved mimicing the output of the joystick it was a fairly simple circuit using an arduino microcontroller a digital to analog converter (DAC) and two amplifiers to increase the voltage to match the the output of the joystick.
I managed to build the circuit with a bit of help of my carers in my stepdad Peter. However when it became time to connect it to the wheelchair it was different to what I expected, the circuit was not designed for this joystick. I had made an assumption that the joystick was the same as the one the Critical Tinkerers wheelchair but it was completely different. The Critical Tinkerers wheelchair had 2 inputs an X and Y where as my one had 4 imputs 2 X's and 2 Y's. Thankfully I was able to use some elements of their circuit in a new circuit it was actually much simpler it uses 2 digital to analog converters with no amplifiers. However I didn't have enough DAC's to make the new circuit so I've had to order more. When they arrive I should have a robot hopefully.
This is the blog of Nick Fryer. I am a 36-year-old maker with a keen interest in how Robotics could be used to help disabled people. I also suffer from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, I hope one day to develop a powered exoskeleton that would give people greater mobility than a wheelchair. This blog has recently been hijacked by Nick's identical twin brother Chris - he also has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.
Sunday, 8 July 2012
Circuit for Wheelchair Robot
This is the Critical Tinkerers circuit.
My circuit with ribbon cable plug, the green circuit below is a radio receiver, You can also see a bit of the critical tinkerers circuit in the bottom right.
This is a dynamic wheelchair controller.
This is the backside of the controller. Ribbon cable attached in the top right.
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