Wheelchair Climbing Construction for Industrial Logistical Applications

Abstract

The human condition is - ever since becoming, in an evolutionary sense, human-associated with running on two legs. Only in the latest human technical development, stairs have become increasingly present as they crystallize to be more suitable as an artificial environment. Although stairs are suitable for humans without walking handicap, they are not for wheel-driven vehicles, like Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) in industry or personal accompanying support vehicles as an example. In this mixed human-machine environment a sort of stair climbing is essential for many logistic applications, as this is an, from the mechanical engineering point of view, essential step in mechanization and their automation. Only recently, a stair-climbing device has been issued a patent, called the “Malteserrollstuhl”, which is designed for stair climbing for handicapped people. This patented mechanism could be further used for industrial applications. The goal of this work is to investigate the possible future directions and strategies that are most likely to be implemented, on the base of this patent, as the next steps towards logistical industrial applications.