The objective of this research is to demonstrate a robotic wheelchair moving in anunknown environment with collision-avoidance navigation. A real-time path-planningalgorithm was implemented by detecting the range to obstacles and by tracking specificlight sources used as beacons. Infrared sensors were used for range sensing, andlight-sensitive resistors were used to track the lights.To optimize the motion trajectory, it was necessary to modify the original motorcontrollers of the electrical wheelchair so that it could turn in a minimum turning radiusof 28.75 cm around its middle point of axle. Then, with these kinematics, the real-timepath planning algorithm of the robotic wheelchair is simplified. In combination with thenewly developed wireless Internet-connection capability, the robotic wheelchair will beable to navigate in an unknown environment.The experimental results presented in this thesis include the performance of the controlsystem, the motion trajectory of the two driving wheels turning in a minimum radius, and the motion trajectory of the real-time path-planning in a real-life testing environment.These experimental results verified that the robotic wheelchair could move successfullyin an unknown environment with collision-avoidance navigation.
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