Abstract:
Studies show that human physical disabilities are increasing with global population growth due to manmade and natural causes. Mobility handicaps cover the largest number from total physical disability. The mobility-impaired people are challenged to carry out their daily activities. For this, different mobility aided devices developed and have addressed for global mobility handicaps. However, these solutions have their own limitations on driver’s locomotion of indoor and outdoor mobility, and climbing standard ramp access due to castor wheel, space and road irregularity. To solve these problems a detachable handle electric wheelchair is designed and developed. Different software are used throughout the study. Modeling parts and assembling is done by SOLIDWORKS 2020 software; the structural stress analysis is done by ANSYS 2021. Stability and motion analysis of the designed wheelchair model is done using MSC ADAMS software. The driving control mechanism is done by IDE. Then the electric wheelchair is structurally manufactured with a detachable handle and electrically by 24V batteries and with geared a BLDC motor, powerful high current motor driver, Arduino UNO, and joystick module for speed and direction control using PWM. The developed detachable handle wheelchair static stability is tested and results the attached handle wheelchair has 32.6o, 31.8o, 17o uphill, downhill and lateral wheel tipping angle respectively. The detached handle wheelchair has 28.6o, 27.5o, 17.7o of uphill downhill and lateral tipping angle respectively. The field test is performed on different road conditions and the result is analyzed using Design Expert 13 software. By using 70 Kg user, we have got the maximum speed of 4m/s, 2m/s and 1m/s on detached handle wheelchair for smooth, old and off-road conditions respectively. 5.2m/s, 4.5 m/s and 3 m/s on attached handle wheelchair for smooth, old and off-road conditions respectively. The theoretical design speed has been 5.9m/s so the wheelchair achieves 88% of desired speed on smooth asphalt. Attached handle wheelchair has 150% improved speed performance than the detachable power unit previously made which has a maximum of 7Km/hr. The climbing test of wheelchairs was also tested on different inclinations. It can climb up to 17o with an attached handle and 10o with a detached handle. When attached compare with detached handles, the attached handle has 60% more climbing performance than the detached handle. When my attached handle electric wheelchair ramp access climbing performance compared with other previously made detachable power unit wheelchair my wheelchair has 60% more climbing performance. Lastly, developed Detachable handle has 5.7Kg which is very light compared with previously made detachable handle power unit which has 31.9Kg. Generally, the developed wheelchair is efficient, convenient to be used for indoor and outdoor mobility.
Keywords: Design, detachable handle, motion analysis, electric wheelchair, power train, stability