© 2020 Jamal I. Al-Nabulsi. This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 3.0 license. Journal of Computer Science Original Research Paper A Novel Approach to Wheelchair Design and Operation Using Multi-Function Controller Jamal I. Al-Nabulsi Department of Medical Engineering, Al-Ahliyya Amman University, Amman, Jordan Article history Received: 05-05-2020 Revised: 04-07-2020 Accepted: 23-07-2020 Email: j.nabulsi@ammanu.edu.jo Abstract: An electric multi-function controlled wheelchair is designed and fully tested. This wheelchair is controlled by several physiological variables namely; voice, head movement, finger bending, breathing pressure and Electrooculography (EOG). The patient has the choice to use any of these variables to control the wheelchair. The voice command is recorded by a voice recognition module with its microphone, whereas, the head and finger motion operate through the gyro accelerometer and flex sensors. A pressure sensor is used to determine the force of breathing and EOG signals are used to control the wheelchair movement. All of the inputs are processed using a microcontroller. Testing of the wheel chair using the mentioned variables is carried out successfully with accuracy between 88 to 96% for various control modules and safety consideration as a primary goal. Keywords: Wheelchair, Breathing-Pressure, EOG, Head-Motion, Voice Recognition Module, Body Gestures Introduction For the past few decades, the need for assistive devices has increased numerously because of the different injuries that could occur to people globally starting from work related injuries to war related injuries. The wheelchair is one of the most commonly used assistive devices for enhancing personal mobility. Wheelchairs assist people with disabilities to become productive members of their communities. According to the US census, around 10% of the global population has disabilities and require some kind of assistive device (Taylor, 2018), where in Europe, according to several statistics is estimated to be around 1%. These estimates reach between 5 to 10% in countries like Cambodia or Afghanistan (Philip, 2012). The current formal estimate of disability incidence in Jordan is more than 10% as reported in (Thompson, 2018). The first commercially manufactured electric wheelchair was simply heavy-duty powered by lead- acid batteries, engines, drive belts and pulleys (Mann et al., 2002). Advances in batteries and electric system management which covers engines and batteries enabled important mechanical advances in electric wheelchairs, where the power base divided the electric wheelchair into two components: The base providing the mobility and the seating system providing the support for the posture, while there was a change from a standard power wheelchair to a power-base wheelchair, (Ebrahimi et al., 2016) reported important developments in electronic devices. Chow and Levy (2011) have shown some of these mechanical and electrical advances included the capacity to add energy tilt and recline systems, as well as programmable performance settings such as forward speed, turning velocity and velocity. New control techniques were developed that surpass using joystick to control a powered wheelchair; most common solution’s is a control using the chin or elbow, but expressing directions using head movements is also used as shown in (Gomes et al., 2019). This can replace wheelchairs that are operated by joysticks which is impossible to control for people with disabilities in their upper extremities. Craig and Nguyen (2006) presented the first head motion movement system that uses a telemetric head motion tool to control a powered wheelchair. Alam et al. (2019; Noman et al., 2018) proposed the development of electrical wheelchair that detects the gesture of hands and finger motion using a mobile