Physically challenged people are often treated as an outcast of the society. They face a number of physical, psychological, social, emotional and economic problems. Apart from the social problems they face from the world that has turned apathetic and hostile towards them, the problems due to their disability is also of great concern. Physically handicapped people often find it difficult to perform the basic things in their day-to-day life that normal people take for granted like getting out of the bed, using the restroom, moving around the house or operating the home appliances etc. This project focuses on solving the problem to some extent. It does so by designing and manufacturing a wheelchair which will be able to assist the handicapped people in their basic day-to-day activities around the house. The system incorporates modern advanced technology along with inventive design to address the issue. It will help the physically challenged people in moving around the home easily. Also it has been built keeping in mind the economic limitations that the user i.e. the physically challenged people might have. So it is able to assist the physically challenged people in an affordable cost.

The main aim here is to build a wheelchair which will enable the user in basic activities without sacrificing usability and affordability. It is not intended to provide state of the art features to its users. It is only focused on providing basic features like stair climbing in a manner which will be easy to use by the disabled person without any external help.

Primary feature of our prototype is stair climbing. Here the caterpillar track belt mechanism has been installed so that it can move smoothly and also climb the stairs easily. It can climb with an angle of 30 degree approx. Since it is a model made in 3:1 ratio, it can carry a load of maximum 30kg approx. During stair climbing, the wheelchair is in an inclined position. This may cause difficulties for the user. To avoid this, an automatic height adjusting mechanism has been used in the main wheel chair so that at the time of stair climbing it automatically keeps the system horizontal to the ground.

To enhance usability for quadriplegics, another important feature is the gesture control. An accelerometer device based transmitter is fitted on the user’s head as we change the position of head, values get changed automatically and the readings of accelerometer are used for wheel chair movements. In the receiver, the Arduino module receives signals from the transmitter. According to the signals, the driver circuit will drive the motor fitted to the wheelchair.