Fuzzy Inference Type Comfortable Driving Control of Electric Assisted Wheelchair Based on Preference Estimation Map

Abstract

The demand for wheelchairs is predicted to increase due to lack of caregivers and aging society. Electric power-assisted wheelchair is one of the support equipment which can easily move long distance with the small pushing force. However, since a commercially sold power-assisted wheelchair is designed for everyone, if a person who prefers the fast moving speed uses it, he/she needs to adjust the pushing torque to produce the preferred speed. Thus the comfortable driving with a commercially available power-assisted wheelchair depends on the user's operation skill and the physical and mental burden is not small. Therefore, this study designs a preference estimation map in advance through the preliminary driving and SD method and set as some appropriate target values of the driving control system. The driving control system for determining the assisted torque is constructed by fuzzy inference to realize the driving target values based on the preference estimation map. Some driving experiments to compare the commercially available wheelchair and the proposed method are performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control system.