User-Friendly Acceleration/Deceleration Control of Electric-Powered Wheelchair

Abstract

Even slight differences in the movement of an electric-powered wheelchair may greatly affect riding comfort for wheelchair users. We focused on upper body tilt during acceleration and deceleration, a factor determining riding comfort and propose controlling tilt to control a user-friendly electric-powered wheelchair. We modeled the wheelchair and designed state variable feedback control with the upper body tilt angle and angular velocity of the upper body used as a state variable and an observer and an optimal regulator using Kalman filter for the presumption of the state variable. We assumed the state variable by the observer and state variable feedback control validated by the optimal regulator through computer simulation. We applied this control to the electric-powered wheelchair designed on a trial basis and indicated that upper body tilt could be suppressed by state variable feedback control.