(IJACSA) International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications, Vol. 12, No. 5, 2021 Towards the Development of a Brain Semi-controlled Wheelchair for Navigation in Indoor Environments Hailah AlMazrua 1 , Abir Benabid Najjar 2 College of Computer and Information Science King Saud University, Riyadh Saudi Arabia Abstract—Several technological advancements emerged providing the technical assistance supporting people with special needs in tackling their everyday tasks. Particularly, with the advancements in cost-effective Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI), they can be very useful for people with disabilities to improve their quality of life. This paper investigates the usability of low- cost BCI for navigation in an indoor environment, which is considered one of the daily challenges facing individuals with mobility impairment. A software framework is proposed to control a wheelchair using three modes of operations: brain- controlled, autonomous and semi-autonomous, taking into consideration the usability and safety requirements. A prototype system based on the proposed framework was developed. The system can detect an obstacle in the front, right and left sides of the wheelchair and can stop the movement automatically to avoid collation. The usability evaluation of the proposed system, in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction, shows that it can be very helpful in the daily life of the mobility impaired people. An experiment was conducted to assess the usability of the proposed framework using the prototype system. Subjects steered the wheelchair using the three different operation modes effectively by controlling the direction of motion. Keywords—Usability; wheelchair navigation; indoor navigation; mobility impairment; obstacle avoidance; obstacle detection; path planning; BCI; brain-computer interaction I. INTRODUCTION Independent mobility is an important aspect in the quality of life for individuals with mobility impairments. Though the needs of many individuals with mobility impairments can be satisfied with traditional manual or powered wheelchairs, a part of the impaired community finds it difficult and sometimes impossible to use the wheelchairs independently. This part comprises of individuals with low vision, visual field reduction, spasticity, tremors, or cognitive deficits [1]. These individuals have to depend on another person to push them while they are on the wheelchair, as they often lack the independent mobility to control a powered wheelchair due to the nature of their disability. In the U.S, almost 10% of the legally blind individuals also have a mobility impairment [3], which makes many of them hesitate to visit unfamiliar places since they have no information about the new environment and its accessibility conditions. Navigation tasks are regarded as one of the critical challenges facing individuals with mobility impairments. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the average American spends 93% of their life indoors [2]. The need to consider indoor navigation is even higher in the Saudi local context, mainly for individuals with some cognitive, visual, or physical impairments since 3.73% of the population have some form of functional disability [31]. Moreover, the safety, easiness and usability features in the assistive systems are considered a crucial requirement considering the special situation of mobility-impaired individuals. However, the currently available navigational assistive systems lack these features [32]. Highly impaired individuals, using the powered wheelchair, require an autonomous wheelchair for navigation [4]. Therefore, developing a smart wheelchair that would transport the mobility-impaired individuals to their desired destination without their direct control would significantly improve their quality of life, taking into account that such wheelchair has to plan a quick and a safe path even when faced with an obstacle. Thus, providing the mobility-impaired individuals with some level of independence, by not relying on another person for assistance, as the wheelchair would maneuver through the obstacles by itself. Also, providing the wheelchair’s rider the ability to control the wheelchair according to his/her preference is a must. Some riders would like to have a full control on how the wheelchair moves, while others prefer to just sit back and make the electric wheelchair moving autonomously. Furthermore, the obstacle detection is a key component for any autonomous system, in order to ensure the safety of the individual driving it. Therefore, many research studies, according to [36], have considered integrating different types of sensors in their autonomous systems, in order to detect and avoid the faced obstacles. These sensors can either be ultrasonic, infrared, computer vision type sensors, laser sensors, or a combination of different types. This paper focuses on the usability engineering of an obstacle avoidance system by combining the new technologies with path optimization techniques taking into consideration the special needs of the target users throughout the development cycle. 574 | Page www.ijacsa.thesai.org