Possibility of Getting On/Off Public Vehicle by Manual Wheelchair with 4 Degrees of Freedom Contact Arm Mechanism

Abstract

This paper proposes an elevating mechanism and its control rules for wheelchair users to get on and off public transportation vehicles by themselves. It is shown that it is possible to move up and down with a wheelchair by applying the grounding function with a 4-degree-of-freedom arm to a vehicle environment with two stages at the entrance. We apply an automatic arm grounding judgment method that applies a disturbance observer as a method for detecting whether the arm touches the floor. Its control availability is shown in getting off/on experiment for a railcar.