1A1-J06 リンク式キャスターの車椅子への適用と段差乗り越え実験(医療・福祉ロボティクス・メカトロニクス)

Abstract

The step climbing experiment of a wheelchair with proposed linked caster has been achieved successfully. This linked caster consists of a caster, toggle link mechanism, fitting to wheelchair. When this caster touches a step, the reaction force pushes the caster to turn it with a support link. Then toggle link mechanism push up the wheelchair to climb over the step. The experiment data shows that the wheelchair with this linked caster can surmount higher step easily than conventional wheelchair. The utmost climbable step height is over a radius of a caster wheel. An improved hinged caster is also proposed.