A power-assisted wheelchair taking running environment into account

Developing a selfdrive wheelchair, one cannot judge that the power assist system which can expand operator´s field of activities, is indispensable element. In addition, this condition has not satisfied the user demand, since the same assistant rate is applied in all environments. Considering the production cost, it is unnecessary to develop a power-assisted wheelchair with more sensor, which is considered in this paper. That is to say, the purpose of this research is to realize sensorless power assist and adapt to environment by considering production cost. Consequently, first realization method of sensorless power assist is proposed. Next, necessity of making the system of wheelchair variable based on inclination information is mentioned. In this paper, the validity of the proposed method is confirmed and its application is introduced.