Front wheel raising and inverse pendulum control of power assist wheel chair robot

Abstract

A power assist wheel chair robot by which a patient can climb over a step up to about 10 cm without a helper is proposed in this paper. A patient can maintain inverse pendulum control of the wheel chair after raising its front wheels. Then, a patient can move to the step maintaining the inverse pendulum control, and can climb over the step using DC motor force. In this paper, the dynamics of the front wheel raising of the wheel chair, the mechanical designs, the control system, the experimental results of the front wheel raising and the inverse pendulum control are presented.