Assistive Wheelchair Project
During the summer of 2012, while an undergraduate, I participated in the CSE Department's REU program: Research Experiences for Undergraduates in Assistive Technologies for People with Disabilities. The program that year was lead by professors Dr. Gergely Záruba and Dr. Manfred Huber.
The program selected 8 students, some from UTA and others from universities around the country, to work on SmartCare-related healthcare projects for 3 months during summer break. My project was a semi-autonomous assistive wheelchair. The project was ongoing having been started and worked on by previous Master's students.
My task over the summer was to update and redo the majority of the wheelchair's custom electronics, circuitry, and microcontroller programming. While also implementing new rotary encoders to read the wheel position, direction, and speed. This project was my first true dive into soldering, circuit design, and electronics implementation evident by my sub-par soldering and wiring. I can say it was a great learning experience and my circuit design/implementation skills have GREATLY improved since what seems like an eternity ago.
At the end of the summer I wrote a paper regarding the progress made on the wheelchair project over the summer: REU 2012 - Wheelchair Paper (Nicholas Burns).pdf
Wheelchair Photos
Previous Electronics and Circuit Design
New Electronics and Circuit Design
