Approximately 5.4 million people in the United States are reported to be living with a form of paralysis (Cleveland Clinic, n.d.). Most of these paralyzed patients have limited ability to manipulate their lower limbs, called paraplegia, which can prevent them from driving a vehicle effectively (Abdullah et al., 2010). Driving is linked to decreased rates of depression and social isolation, making it an important aspect of life to be provided for people with lower limb disabilities (de Freitas et al., 2019). Although driving can still be done by using hand controls, typically in the form of a lever, this form of driving requires much more effort for paraplegic drivers, which can lead to less usage of cars (Mansor et al., 2020). Additionally, many assistive devices end up abandoned due to flaws, which could be reflected in the low usage of driving devices by people such as our client (Borges et al., 2021). Due to the necessity of driving in daily life, work to get more people with paraplegia on the road needs to be done to allow for success in all aspects of life.
The proposed design concept is a steering handle that would function similarly to a steering wheel knob. The handle would provide access to controls for the gas and brakes using a joystick whilst still steering the car. Different bearings could be used for the handle to compensate for the ergonomics of the user while driving, as well as to compensate for potential hand injuries. Once an input through the joystick is provided, motors will be used to pull on the gas or brake pedals so that the user can control the speed of the car.
The current prototype consists of a pedal system and a handle system. The pedal system has a servo holder which holds four servo motors that are used to pull the pedals down. Each pedal has two servos, one on each side of a pulley. The pulleys pull wires attached to the pedals. The handle system consists of two ends of a clamp, which are used to attach to the wheel, and a handle which the user holds and has the joystick on it. All electronics are controlled with an Arduino. The servos, Arduino, and wires can be found on Amazon. All other components were 3D printed. The positive and ground of all servos and the joystick connect to the positive and ground terminals on the Arduino. The top gas servo is attached to pin 6, the bottom gas servo is attached to pin 7, the bottom brake servo is attached to pin 9, and the top brake servo is attached to pin 8. The joystick Y axis potentiometer is attached to pin A1.