To confirm that the proposed step climbing method is better in terms of the step climbing of the large wheels, it is compared with the method that uses only the traction force of the drive wheel.
The extensive experiments using the proposed wall-climbing platform equipped with the wall-cleaning units are carried out to demonstrate its stable climbing capability as well as excellent cleaning performance.
The series of motions of the wheelchair involved in the proposed step climbing method is shown in Figure 5.
In this chapter, the proposed step climbing method and add-on drive mechanism for the five-wheeled wheelchair are explained.
The proposed step climbing mechanism, which is composed of a linear actuator, an active-caster, and some frames, is shown in Figure 6.
Moreover, the design conditions of the mechanism for realizing the proposed step climbing method were obtained through a simulation analysis and used to construct a prototype.
In this study, the height of the step was assumed as 100 mm. Figure 5 A series of wheelchair motion as the proposed step climbing method.
Although the experimental results had measurement errors, the tracks of markers A, C, and D were almost the same as in the simulation results, confirming that the prototype could perform the proposed step climbing method.
Previous researches have proposed step climbing methods for wheelchairs using cooperative control with a robot [3] or attached legs [4], but these mechanisms are restricted in their use environment.
To verify that the prototype satisfied the design conditions for realizing the proposed step climbing method, the motion of the mechanism was tested and compared with the simulation results shown in Figure 10.
For the method that uses the static wheelie motion of the proposed step climbing mechanism without brakes in the large wheels, the motion of the wheelchair frame is shown in Figure 8(a).
