the wheelchair where they want to reach their desired
destination. The people which have not muscular
Voice Controlled Wheel
Chair
Muhammad Nautash Khan
Department of Electrical Engineering
University of Management & Technology
Lahore, Pakistan
nautashkhan19@gmail.com
Abstract—This paper presents an electrical wheel
chair that uses voice recognition tool. A voice-
controlled wheel chair is very convenient to use
for physically disabled person who cannot control
their hands movements. The powered wheel chair
uses motors for its movement and voice
recognition for voice commands. The voice
command is given through mic then transfer to
Arduino Nano to control wheel chair. Moreover,
its circuit consists of an Arduino and voice
recognition V3 module. This system was designed
and developed to save time energy and cost of the
disable. Voice of the user is recognize by voice
recognition module and then it provides the data
stored in form of codes to Arduino
microcontroller. Then Arduino controls its
movement accordingly. The objective is design a
system which make the life of disable people
easier.
Keywords—Voice recognition, wheelchair, V3
module, DC motor, Microcontroller Arduino.
I. INTRODUCTION
World Health Organization says that there 70
million people are handicapped which are dependent
to other person. [1]Wheelchair is an essential vehicle
for the physically disable people. Among all type of
disability the movement disability of patients are the
2nd highest number and also older people have also
difficulty in movement. They use conventional
wheelchair, which is difficult for the disable person.
However, in manual wheel chair, disable person is
dependent to the take care person but in voice control
wheelchair there is no need of take care person to
help the disable person. They can easily operate by
voice in which the disable person can record their
voice in voice recognition module give instruction to
strength in their hands and arm can easily use this
wheelchair by voice. The voice command which will
be given through the mic which is attached through
voice recognition module V3 then these instruction is
given to Arduino Nano .The program written on the
Arduino IDE helps Arduino to convert the voice
commands into the output and wheel chair will move
accordingly to the instructions. The basic instructions
which are given is forward, back, left, right and stop.
After implementing the voice recognition module it
will very helpful for the physically disable person to
become independent
The end of 1903 an electric wheelchair powered by
a 12-volt battery and 3/8 horsepower motor was used
to give people a ride. At that time it could not be used
for the movement of people with disabilities but it
paved the way for future development. During World
War I, the first electric wheelchairs were used for
disabled people with hand, foot, and lower limbs as a
result of which they were unable to perform normal
activities. There are many technologies to overcome
this problem. To overcome, this problem, there are a
number of application in the market that help people
with disabilities to do their job. When a person is
disabled, they rely on others to perform their daily
activities such as administration etc. Several studies
have shown that independent walking, including a
powerful wheelchair, hand-operated wheelchair and
walker is beneficial for adults and children. Walking
independently reduces dependence on caretakers and
family members and promotes feelings of self-
confidence.[2]
The inability to walk properly often leads to a
decrease in opportunities for recreation, leading to
isolation, anxiety and depression. Although a
wheelchair or a wheelchair can meet the needs of
many people with disabilities, the disabled
community finds it difficult or impossible to use
wheelchairs independently. This figure includes
people who are visually impaired, who cannot
understand, etc. [3] The proposed wheelchair-
mounted wheelchair will bring extra comfort to
people with disabilities. The technology can also
improve safety for users using powerful wheelchair-
controlled wheelchairs, by preventing collisions with
walls, fixed objects, furniture and other people. [4] It
reduces people's efforts.
This is useful for people with physical disabilities
who cannot use household items with their hands.
This will help save energy to some degree, as some
people are too lazy to turn off electrical appliances
themselves. It is easy to work with tested people and
does not require the use of a home machine by hand.
It reduces risk.
The proposed system has some limitations and
such as: It needs additional provision to run the
model. Only inserted voice detected by the module.
Module costs are very high. [5] This type of system
minimizes manual effort to locate and disassemble
the wheelchair control command. The speed and
direction of the wheelchair can be determined using
the specified instructions. So the only thing you need
to do to get in the wheelchair is to have a trained
voice. Alternatively, the development of this project
can be done at low cost and affordable. However, this
system needs some upgrades to make it more reliable.
This design can be enhance by using a wireless
connection in a wheelchair.[7] By building this
program, we can directly improve the quality of life
of people with disabilities in the community. Finally,
we hope that this type of system can contribute to the
development of wheelchair technology. In 2014,
Kalbi presented controlled movement of wheelchair
in different directions where the person want to go by
voice commands and also by the simple gesture of
patient.
The Ultrasonic sensor and Infrared sensors is to
help the disable person not too collide with obstacle.
The automatic obstacle detection and avoidance from
the obstacle and temporary brakes applied on wheel
chair and change its direction.[6] It has also done
wall tracking and target-tracking algorithms had
developed in the wheelchair. The drawbacks and
weakness in this project majorly is that sometimes it
does not give the 100% recognition rate to build the
effective voice controlled wheelchair.
Some other causes of loss of appendages include
age, mishaps, and wars. The wheelchair is utilized by
such disable persons and they can control wheelchair
in their ease. The user does not require any
preparation for the use of wheelchair as the voice of
the user is already constrained and recognized to the
voice module of wheelchair. The wheelchair heads to
the defined direction by oral command of the user.
The voice acknowledgement module is used for
distinguishing voice command of the patient. Both
the wheels can be moved forward, turn around at
same time. This wheelchair can be driven left, right,
straight forward, stop and turn around.
In [9], a multimode wheelchair has been
designed by taking safety measures. This certain
wheelchair can be used manually and via voice
commands. In this wheelchair, a Memes sensor is
connected to the patient’s hand. The system mainly
contains three components. These contain a voice
recognition module with a Memes sensor control unit
of wheelchair. Basically this speech recognition
technology is used to provide easiness in daily
activities of handicapped persons. A system is
integrated in [10] that traces movement of finger and
recognizes the voice commands of human to direct a
way for movement of wheelchair. So this is a
multimode system work that uses multiple methods
such as speech recognition, finger movement
recognition, and gesture movement.
Moreover, a joystick is also installed so if the
patients want to use it they can also utilize this
option. An android operated wheelchair option is
provided in [11] to be utilized by quadriplegic
individuals so that they can perform their tasks by
independently controlling wheelchair. This certain
wheelchair can be driven by connecting through
android application or using voice signal. In this
wheelchair, Bluetooth is the mean of connection
between android phone and microcontroller. The
android smartphone is used to select the directions
and then microcontroller further directs to the wheels
of wheelchair.
Another android phone based wheelchair is
proposed in [12]. The wheelchair can be driven by
directing through mobile application or pre-designed
voice commands. Some sensors are installed in the
system to detect hurdles and obstacles coming in
path. Before deployment, some issues in the system
must be viewed and resolved. Control system isn’t
readily available and accessible and costs high.
Working of face recognition depends on intensity of
light and may not be successful all the time. People
with hand amputees and people who do not know to
use android cannot utilize this option. Moreover
voice controlled wheelchair may also not be used by
the person who has a disability in speaking. This
system is a combination of many convenient sub
systems to provide as much ease as possible to the
patients.
II. METHDOLOGY
The voice recognition module is the basic feature
in our prototype wheelchair in which the person
record his voice in module V3.The module will give
the instruction like (forward), which is connected
with the Arduino Nano .It will give further
instructions to the motor driver IBT2 .All circuit is
connected with the LM2596 buck module which will
decrease voltage up to the 4.80V that is connected
with the two LIPO battery of 12v DC each. After the
reduction of voltage, the 12v dc motor will move
forward that given instruction by the person.
 specification of our geared motor is 200-watt 12 V
DC motor and 5 A current required each.

Figure 2:12v DC Gear Motors

B. ARDUINO NANO
The Arduino Nano is small but complete board
based on the ATMEGA 328 It has the ATMEGA 328
Microcontroller chip where the data is stored .It have
mini USB jack to power or it have the 5V pin to
power the Arduino .It have total 14 Digital Pins and 8
Analog pins on the Nano Board. The digital pins can
used to interface the sensors by using them as input
pins or it can used to drive loads by using them as
output pins.

Figure 1: Block diagram

For this stage of the project we have to research

about the components and search the market as not .
all, the components are available in the market. We Figure 3: Diagram of Arduino Nano
were able to find 90% of the components and some
were scavenged for old projects merely to reduce the
overall cost of the project. Voice recognition module
is a tricky part. Our Voice control wheelchair is a
huge and has a substantial weight as well, so we have
to choose a motor to provide enough torque and
speed for to operate.
A. Mechanical Design
Mechanical structure is the most important part in
the electric wheel chair the wheel chair, which we
have, is simple and manual in which first we have to
motorize the wheel chair by applying the two motors
on the wheelchair. We have to move the wheelchair
left and right that is why we need two Geared motors.
The gear motors we used because reduce the speed
and increase the torque of an electric motor. The
structure is prepared in the wheel to put the shaft of
the motor that start the wheelchair movement. The
 C. IBT2
The IBT 2 is used for the two high current half
bridge in which there are two BTS 7690 chip is
provided for controlling the motor. Interfacing to
microcontroller is made easy to control the motor. It
can operate at high current up to 43A. The use of
74HC244 chip effectively isolated SCM. It have 8
pins for controlling the two IC chips and 4 connectors
2 connectors for the battery positive and negative
terminal and 2 for the motor positive and negative
terminals.
Figure 4: Diagram of IBT2
D. LM 2596-Buck Module:
This buck module is a step down switching
regulator in which we can decrease the voltage from
1.25V to 26V by counterclockwise the screw and
the voltage would be adjust and managed by the
voltmeter. LM 2596 is a step down module in which
it is operating at a switching frequency of 150 KHz.
Figure 5: Diagram of LM2596 buckle
E. Voice Recognition Module V3:
Voice Recognition module V3 product is a speaker
dependent through mic .It supports up to 15 voice
commands in all 3 groups of 5 commands are saved
in each group .Maximum 5 voice commands can be
import from the module .There is a drawback in this
module that if you want to use the Group 1, 2 and 3
you have to first import that group then it will
recognize that voice. It has four pins VCC, TXD,
RXD and GND. There is space for the mic to connect
it and record your voice.
Figure 6: Diagram of V3
F. Battery:
Battery is another main component to run this
project. We needed a DC supply so we have used two
batteries of lead acid , both batteries are 12 V and 12
A to supply current and activate the voice control
wheelchair circuit.
Figure 7: Diagram of lead acid Battery
G. Voice recording in V3 module:
In V3 module there are 4 pins in which we have to
connect the TX, RX ,VCC and GND with USB to
TTL module . In which the TX of v3 is connected
with the RX of TTL module and RX of v3 is
connected with TX of TTL module other VCC is
connected with 5V and GND to GND.[8]
 Figure 8: Access port result
Figure 9: Front view of our voice control chair
Sr. User Accuracy Working status of
Voice in wheelchair
Command Percentag
e
1 Forward 90% Left and Right Motor
move forward
2 Left 99% Left motor start and
right motor stop
3 Right 99% Right motor start and
left motor stop
4 Back 91% Left and right both
motors move backward
5 Stop 96% Left and Right Motor
both stop Figure 10: Back view of our Voice Control
Wheelchair
Then plug the microphone of the voice module and
connect USB module to the laptop. Then open the Table 1: Results Of Voice control wheel
access port software to record the voice command in
the V3.then we write aa36 command to start the After testing, multiple times we concluded that
common mode then press send button now access port our voice recognition module is working perfectly.
is in common mode. Then start recording your The voice input of the user is taken through mike.
commands in AA11 after recording your voice then The voice recognition module recognizes the voice of
import the Group 1 with AA 21 otherwise command the user and then transmits the signal towards
will not store in the module. Arduino. The arduino then commands and directs the
wheel to move in given direction using motors. There
III. RESULTS AND ITS ANALYSIS are sometimes problem that distortion in voice occurs
or voice frequency changes. Then the module have
difficulty in recognition of voice. In this case it does
In this chapter, we have shown the results, we have
not respond so the user have to give input again in
observed after testing our project five to six times.
form of voice command. This is the only issue that
These Results include the accuracy of voice
we have faced otherwise wheel chair working status
recognition module.
is quite well and implement the voice command that
the user want. It will enhance the life style quality of
handicapped, elders, and people with other
disabilities.

IV. CONCULSION
In this paper, we evolved the voice-activated
wheelchair that has sensible device the use of sensor
information. The design we have made not only
reduce the price of manufacturing but it also create
great competition with other electrical wheelchair in
the market. This system enhanced the lifestyle of
disable person help them to compete in their life.
However, the consumer cannot circulate smoothly
in slender route because he/her orders the voice
command more. Therefore, our proposed machine
desires to improve the usability greater. In the
destiny, we want to assess our machine with the
handicapped individual or aged character who's the
authentic person of our system.
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