Abstract
Electric wheelchair could be one of the tools in providing mobility of elderly and challenged. Japanese population is rapidly increasing owing to the medical development and the decreasing of the birthrate. The current-products in the market almost all have joysticks as the controller device. However, it is sometimes necessary to practice the operation in order to be able to use an electric wheelchair effectively. In this paper, we propose the new type of controller device, which has two input units for the turning control and one for the moving control individually. We have evaluated the traveling performance and optimal adjustment of an electric wheelchair. Especially, optimal time constant in case of switching times and adjustment of transducer between Bi-state input to velocity are described.
