A new dynamic model of the manual wheelchair for straight and curvilinear propulsion

Due to their mechanical design, current wheelchair ergometers cannot simulate the behaviour of a wheelchair propelled on curvilinear paths. This is because they implement a dynamic model of the Wheelchair-user system propelled on Straight Line only (WSL). In this paper, we present a new dynamic model of the Wheelchair-user propelled on Straight and Curvilinear paths (WSC), along with a characterization method based on measurements recorded on the field. Other than measured geometrical constants and kinetic/kinematic data from instrumented wheels, no information about the dynamic parameters such as the system´s mass and its moment of inertia are necessary. The accuracy of the new WSC model was compared with the WSL model. To this end, ten subjects propelled an instrumented wheelchair following straight and curvilinear patterns. The recorded kinetics were fed to both models, and their estimated kinematics were compared to the recorded ones. For the curvilinear patterns, the RMS relative error between the estimated and measured rear wheels velocities over a complete push cycle are lower for the WSC model than for the WSL model. Outward wheel: 7.98% (WSC) vs 12.98% (WSL). Inward wheel: 10.76% (WSC) vs 20.73% (WSL).