Fall Avoidance Control of Wheeled Inverted Pendulum Type Robotic Wheelchair While Climbing Stairs

The wheelchair is the major means of transport for
physically disabled people. However, it cannot overcome architectural
barriers such as curbs and stairs. In this paper, the authors proposed
a method to avoid falling down of a wheeled inverted pendulum type
robotic wheelchair for climbing stairs. The problem of this system
is that the feedback gain of the wheels cannot be set high due to
modeling errors and gear backlash, which results in the movement
of wheels. Therefore, the wheels slide down the stairs or collide with
the side of the stairs, and finally the wheelchair falls down. To avoid
falling down, the authors proposed a slider control strategy based on
skyhook model in order to decrease the movement of wheels, and a
rotary link control strategy based on the staircase dimensions in order
to avoid collision or slide down. The effectiveness of the proposed
fall avoidance control strategy was validated by ODE simulations and
the prototype wheelchair.

Authors:

• Nan Ding
• Motoki Shino
• Nobuyasu Tomokuni
• Genki Murata

Keywords:

• EPW
• fall avoidance control
• skyhook
• wheeled inverted pendulum.

References:

[1] Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, the handicapped white paper, 2015.
[2] U.S. Access Board Washington, DC, Demographics of Wheeled Mobility
Device Users. In Conference on Space Requirements for Wheeled
Mobility, 2003.
[3] Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines (ADAAG),
https://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/buildings-andsites/
about-the-ada-standards/guide-to-the-ada-standards (12/7/2016
accessed).
[4] Laffont I, Guillon B, Fermanian C, Pouillot S, Boyer F, et al. ”Evaluation
of a stair-climbing power wheelchair in 25 people with tetraplegia”, Arch
Phys Med Rehabil 2008; 89(10): 1958-64.
[5] ETH Zurich, The Stairclimbing Wheelchair Scewo, http://scalevo.ch/
(12/7/2016 accessed).
[6] Quaglia G, Franco W, Oderio R, ”Wheelchair.1, a mechanical concept for
a stair climbing wheelchair”, Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO) IEEE
International Conference, pp.800-805.
[7] ISO standard: Wheelchair - Section 5: Determination of dimensions, mass
and maneuvering space ISO 7176-5.
[8] Unstal H, Minkel JL, ”Study of the Independence IBOT 3000 Mobility
System: An Innovative Power Mobility Device, During Use in Community
Enveronments”, Arch Phys Med Rehabil 2004; 85(12): 2002-10.
[9] M. Shino, N. Tomokuni, G. Murata and M. Segawa, ”Wheeled Inverted
Pendulum Type Robotic Wheelchair with Integrated Control of Seat
Slider and Rotary Link between Wheels for Climbing Stair”, 2014 IEEE
Workshop on Advanced Robotic and its Social Impacts (ARSO), 2014,
pp121-126.
[10] JIS B 7760-2:2004 (ISO 2631-1:1997) whole-body vibration Part 2:
General requirements for measurement for measurement and evaluation
method.
[11] Enforcement Ordinance of Construction Standard Law, Articles 23-27.