Abstract
Electrification of a transportation device makes it possible to achieve quietness and high-performance control. Electric vehicles have been developed based on such kind of thought. Wheel Chairs might get comfortableness and excellent mobility by electrification. The conventional electric powered wheel chair, PWC, has, however, the following disadvantages due to universal functions: (1) heavy weight makes it difficult to store especially in-house use when it is not in use, (2) the design of PWC is somewhat out of place with surrounding furniture, (3) PWC cannot easily turn in a limited house space. We have made a new powered wheel chair named "mobile chair" which has excellent features solving the above-mentioned problems. This paper introduces the design and performances as well as the evaluation of the mobile chair based on a human engineering point of view.
