2010 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Analysis of the Operation Abilities of Older Persons while Driving a Handle Type Electric Wheelchair and Proposal of the Operator Assistance System

Research Project

Project/Area Number	21760188
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Intelligent mechanics/Mechanical systems
Research Institution	The University of Tokyo
Principal Investigator	SHINO Motoki The University of Tokyo, 大学院・工学系研究科, 准教授 (10345085)
Project Period (FY)	2009 – 2010
Keywords	人間生活環境 / 後期高齢者 / 電動車いす / 操作能力 / 安全 / 不安全行動 / 支援
Research Abstract	To clarify the cause of older persons' unsafe behaviors while driving a handle type electric wheelchair, we extracted unsafe behaviors of older persons by measuring video image data while driving the electric wheelchair in the real situation and measured driving abilities that is relation with the cause of unsafe behaviors. As a result, we found that non-confirming behavior was the most number of unsafe behaviors while driving and that older persons' divided attention, the useful field of view and the inhibition performance were declined. Therefore, we clarified that their declined performance was influenced the unsafe behaviors such as non-confirming behavior. Then, we proposed the driver assistance system which avoids collisions with the obstacle that approached from the rear side.