Countermeasure for step of the road by using a mulch-function wheelchair

Abstract

Passing of a step is difficult work for a wheelchair. Then many researchers have developed various step passing technology for a wheel chair. However several problems exist in these technology. One of reasons is that woman or elderly wheelchair users does not possess the necessary muscle strength sufficiently for getting over a step. When some woman operated wheelchair on the market, the report that only a step of 0.9cm was got over exists. Other one is the big impact which occurs to a step when touching. A wheelchair user feels unpleasantly and this impact might sometimes make a wheelchair fall down. Therefore we have developed the step passing technology for wheelchair by using a multi-function wheelchair's function. We could get over a step in stable way by using the lifting up function of the multi-function wheelchair. As a result, multi-function wheelchair of the state that a wheel chair user took it became stable, and could ride over a step of 55mm. It was possible to get over maximum 105 mm in the state on which user does not ride.