Wheelchair lift which is installable both of steps and stairs

Abstract

This study proposes a novel step and stair lifting system for wheelchair. In general households, it is difficult for setting the step/stair lift to provide a large space at the front of the entrance, because the size of the system is very large. In addition, the system requires an actuator separate from the lifting drive for folding the platform and wheel-stops. As the number of actuators increases, the scale of the system also increases. Therefore, a stair and step lifting system were designed to satisfy these concepts as follows: 1) do not occupy the space in lower floor side, 2) stair and step common system, and 3) one degree of freedom mechanism. Based on these concepts, the proposed system has only one degree of freedom for driving rail to lift platform, and can be installed at both the stairs and the step by changing the inclination of the driving rail. In this paper, the designs for the step and stair of the proposed system are described. Furthermore, mechanisms for folding a platform and mechanisms for opening and closing wheel-stops are proposed using the lifting drive. For lifting motion, the disturbance observer is integrated to the control system. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed systems are elucidated through the experiments.

Keywords

• welfare system
• mechanical design
• disturbance observer