A novel design of an omnidirectional wheelchair

Abstract

Wheelchair users are not able to move around as easily as someone on foot. For those not in a wheelchair, to move sideways, perhaps alongside a work surface, generally just requires a step to the left or right. Someone in a wheelchair however must shuffle his/her wheelchair forwards and backwards several times. The more restricted the space available, the more difficult this is. A solution to this is to use an omnidirectional wheelchair, which can translate left and right, and rotate on the spot as well as the more conventional movements. Several projects have addressed this problem in the past but have been complex and expensive and haven't worked on all floor surfaces. The authors have developed concepts for a simple and robust omnidirectional base and plan to integrate this into a new wheelchair design. This paper will describe these concepts, and discuss work in progress on realising these aims.