Abstract
Since a wheelchair was originally designed as a transportation vehicle in ones who can not walk well due to the degenerative muscle of legs of the elderly and disabled persons, it was not considered to apply lower limbs to drive a wheelchair Wheelchairs driven by arms cause a shoulder disorder, a disuse atrophy of leg muscles and a contracture of leg joints. On the other hand, while wheelchairs driven by legs can prevent or alleviate those symptoms in a daily life, it is difficult to drive for oneself if their muscle forces are not enough to drive the wheelchair To solve its difficulty the Functional Electrical Stimulation is carried out on their leg muscles to pedal the wheelchair, and to get a stable driving a motor assist is considered. The leg pedaling motion in this paper is controlled by the fuzzy logic. Experiments of the pedaling using one healthy young man are performed on the level road, and a smooth pedaling motion is realized.
