Research on intelligent mobility with an electric drive unit that can be easily attached to manual wheelchairs and beds.

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20H04562
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 90150:Medical assistive technology-related
• Research Institution: Tokyo University of Science (2021-2023); Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (2020)
• Principal Investigator: Wada Masayoshi 東京理科大学, 工学部電気工学科, 教授 (80406537)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: アクティブキャスタ / 車いす / 電動化装置 / 協調搬送

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Electrically motorizing systems were proposed in this research that can be retrofitted to manually operated wheelchairs and beds, enabling advanced mobility and mobility assistance. We developed a force sensing system that detects the operating force acting on the any position on a moving object. The force sensing system installed on the active-caster wheel mechanism provides 2DOF force information to the control system. We applyed the admittance control for driving the mobile objects stably by using the detected force information.
Furthermore, for the omnidirectional drive of large objects such as beds, we proposed a system that applies active caster control to standard two mobile robots and achieves cooperative control of the omnidirectional drive of an object by measuring the relative posture between the object and the robots with sensors installed in the robots. The effectiveness of each system was confirmed through experiments using prototypes.

Free Research Field

知能機械学・機械システム

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の学術的成果としては、研究代表者が提案するアクティブキャスタへの力検出手法およびそのパワーアシストシステムへの応用展開の実現を示せたことが挙げられる。このシステム構成は搭乗者が乗ったままで車いすへの着脱が容易なので個人ユーザのみならず病院など大きな施設への展開も期待でき社会的意義も大きいと考えられる。
また通常の2輪駆動ロボットにアクティブキャスタの制御を応用し、複数のロボットによる大型搬送物の協調搬送システムの成果は、試作機で実施した２台のロボットの協調のみならず、多数のロボットシステムに展開することで、物流で扱われる重量物、大型・長尺物の搬送などより広い技術展開の可能性がある。