Control of a stair climbing wheelchair

Abstract

This paper presents investigations into the control of a stair climbing wheelchair particularly for indoor usage. A virtual wheelchair model is developed using Visual Nastran software and linked with Matlab/Simulink for control purposes. The goals are to have a simple, compact and stable stairs climbing wheelchair in order to complete the ascending and descending tasks. The challenges are to ensure the wheelchair seat always stay at the upright position and to control both the front and rear wheel motors while climbing. PID control is used to provide appropriate torque to both front and rear wheels as well as at to the wheelchair seat during climbing. Results show that the wheelchair movement can be controlled smoothly and the seat maintained at the desired position with the adapted approach.

Electric-powered wheelchair with stair-climbing ability

“…The iBOT series EPW-SCs performed the feedback control to its COG position similar to the inverted pendulum control and laid a foundation of stable stair-climbing. 20,78 In the aspect of stability analysis and evaluation, Fang et al analyzed the stair-climbing stability of their wheel cluster-based EPW-SC and gave a simulation verification based on the usage of stability margin and the position analysis of the COG's projection point in the support polygon. 4 Yu et al proposed a tip over and slippage stability criterion for a variable geometry single-tracked EPW-SC based on the geometric model, the static model, and the track-stair interaction analysis, for partial tracked-based EPW-SCs.…”

Numerical Modelling of Loads on the Structural Elements of an Innovative Mechanism Enabling Wheelchairs to Negotiate Stairs

“…The last group of devices of this type that is gaining popularity in recent years is walking robots with the ability to overcome obstacles. An example of this type of solution is described by Ghani [8]. The distinctive feature of this robot is that it has two supports, each with two steering wheels.…”