抄録
The stair climber for wheelchair users is needed to ascend or descend stairs in public facilities, such as schools, transportation stations, museums, and etc. We have been developing a new stair climber, named "ESCAL-F". ESCAL-F mainly consists of four crawlers, wheelchair carrier, three motors, tilt angle measuring device, onboard CPU and battery. Four crawlers, two in front and two in rear, are attached at the base of ESCAL-F and are powered by two motors. Two of four crawlers engage with rack of an auxiliary guide rail, located near sidewall of stairs, and prevent slip and fall accidents on stairs. This structure realizes stable ascending or descending stairs. The wheelchair carrier is powered by one motor to keep it parallel to the ground. We proposed the use of the low cost, solid state accelerometer as a tilt angle measuring device. The tilt angle is the angle which is the floor of the wheelchair carrier makes with the horizontal. It is shown in the experiments that the proposed tilt angle control is useful enough for practical use.
