A Comprehensive Review of Smart Wheelchairs: Past, Present and Future
This is an incremental review that addresses the lack of comprehensive overviews in smart wheelchair research, targeting researchers and developers in assistive technology.
The paper provides a systematic review of smart wheelchair research trends, aiming to enhance awareness of current technology and improve functional mobility for power wheelchair users.
A smart wheelchair (SW) is a power wheelchair (PW) to which computers, sensors, and assistive technology are attached. In the past decade, there has been little effort to provide a systematic review of SW research. This paper aims to provide a complete state-of-the-art overview of SW research trends. We expect that the information gathered in this study will enhance awareness of the status of contemporary PW as well as SW technology, and increase the functional mobility of people who use PWs. We systematically present the international SW research effort, starting with an introduction to power wheelchairs and the communities they serve. Then we discuss in detail the SW and associated technological innovations with an emphasis on the most researched areas, generating the most interest for future research and development. We conclude with our vision for the future of SW research and how to best serve people with all types of disabilities.