Power Assistance for an Electric Wheelchair on a Steep Slope and the Automatic Adjustment of its Assistive Ratio

• Published in: IEEJ JOURNAL OF INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS Vol. 140; no. 5; p. 364
• Main Authors: Li, Peirang, Liu, Chang, Matsuzawa, Ryuichi, Liang, Hongbo, Ueda, Naoya, Watanabe, Taiki, Zhu, Chi, 李 沛譲, 劉 暢, 隆一, 松澤, 梁 宏博, 直哉, 上田, 大貴, 渡邉, 朱 赤
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: Tokyo Japan Science and Technology Agency 2020
• Subjects: Electrical impedance; Maximum power; Mountainous areas; Physical examinations; Slopes; Wheelchairs
• ISSN: 2187-1094; 2187-1108
• DOI: 10.1541/ieejias.140.364

In this paper, an electric wheelchair with a low-cost force sensing mechanism was developed for power assistance on a steep slope. Steep slopes can be found in mountainous areas and so on. In particular, 17° slopes have been used in some mobile examination cars, in which, two or three staffs have to push and pull a wheelchair so that it can enter the car and enable medical examinations to be conducted. However, most electric wheelchairs in the market cannot climb such a steep slope. Therefore, in this study, we first developed an electric powered assistive wheelchair for such steep slopes and then proposed extended admittance control to provide assistance when climbing such slopes. The extended admittance control can distribute the burden due to the gravity of the entire wheelchair and the rider to the caregiver and the electric wheelchair. Meanwhile, an automatic parameter adjustment method was proposed for deriving the maximum power of the motor for assistance according to the weight change of the wheelchair and the rider. Verification experiments were used to evaluate the proposed assistive control, and its effect was verified.