When mobility degrades with age, it is of great significance to develop devices which can support the elderly in their day-to-day life. With the usage of intelligent assistive robotic systems, elderly population can lead a better quality of life independently. This article is a review of various assistive devices for elderly focussing on mobility and self-transfer systems. The practical difficulties in walking and moving from bed to wheel chair or wheel chair to toilet seat affect the daily activities of aged people. Depending on caregivers to access toilets affects one's dignity. The review covers various advances that have been evolved in this area of research and addresses the limitations to be overcome.

Mobility assistive devices and self-transfer robotic systems for elderly, a review

With the accelerating development of aged tendency of population and rapid growth in the number of the disabled caused by diseases or injuries, the wheelchair with good performance for the aged and disabled is attracting the attention from the society. A wheelchair can provide the user with many benefits, such as maintaining mobility, continuing or broadening community and social activities, conserving strength and energy, and enhancing quality of life. The wheelchair body must be compact enough to go through narrow doorways. The wheelchair must be wide enough to prevent the patient from falling on the floor. A large footprint is therefore desirable for stability and safety, while wheelchairs must conform to dimensional constraints. For this reason, in this paper, we present the design and implementation of an omni directional wheelchair, which has a small size and can move easily in narrow spaces. We present the design of the proposed omni directional wheelchair and discuss some implementation and application issues.

Design and Implementation of an Omnidirectional Wheelchair: Control System and Its Applications

With the accelerating development of aged tendency of population and rapid growth in the number of the disabled caused by diseases or injuries, the wheelchair with good performance for the aged and disabled is attracting the attention from the society. A wheelchair can provide the user with many benefits, such as maintaining mobility, continuing or broadening community and social activities, conserving strength and energy, and enhancing quality of life. The wheelchair body must be compact enough to go through narrow doorways. The wheelchair must be wide enough to prevent the patient from falling on the floor. A large footprint is therefore desirable for stability and safety, while wheelchairs must conform to dimensional constraints. In this paper, we present the implementation and evaluation of an Omni directional wheelchair, which has a small size and can move easily in narrow spaces. In order to evaluate the implemented wheelchair, we carried out some experiments and discussed some implementation and application issues. The experimental results show that the implemented wheelchair in general works properly, but its still needs improvements.

Implementation and Evaluation of a Small Size Omnidirectional Wheelchair

Cooperative step-climbing strategy using an autonomous wheelchair and a robot

Manual wheelchair (MWC) users face a variety of obstacles limiting their participation. Different MWC models and new add-on components intended to improve propulsion may impact users’ function and ...

Scoping review of propelling aids for manual wheelchairs

A wheelchair with a lifting function is designed to assist a caregiver when transferring a wheelchair user not only indoors but also outdoors. The target user is typically a severely disabled person with disabled upper and lower limbs and therefore needs the physical support when using a toilet or transferring from a bed to a wheelchair and so forth. Both the wheelchair and the lift are driven by their respective motors. The user can approach above the toilet stool or the bed from the rear because the large driving wheels are located in front of the body, and the seat can be folded. This wheelchair is allowed to travel on public roads because of the mechanism of folding the frame for lifting. This paper presents the concept design and the experimental results of a full-sized prototype wheelchair with the lifting function, which confirms the design effectiveness.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1155/2012/803014

Development of a Wheelchair with a Lifting Function

Development of a pair of step-climbing units for a manual wheelchair user

We have developed a pair of step-climbing units that can be installed on a standard manual wheelchair. Many wheelchair users hope to lead an independent life without assistance. The target users of...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1687814017695179

Kaoru Katsumura

Papers

Development of a Wheelchair with a Lifting Function

Development of a Wheelchair with a Lifting Function

Development of a pair of step-climbing units for a manual wheelchair user

A pair of step-climbing units for a manual wheelchair user: Passing over several steps using a pair of portable slopes:

Development of a Wheelchair with a Lifting Function - Conceptual Design and the Verification Using a Scale Model and a Full-Sized Prototype -