On a Complete Dynamical Model of Manual Wheelchair for Virtual Reality Simulation Platform
Résumé
A manual wheelchair (MWC) is an indispensable support for a person with reduced mobility. The researches on improving performance of MWC, therefore, should be validated by a reliable simulation platform, which allows simulating the MWC operation in virtual reality (VR), before being tested on real conditions. This research aims to provide a fully-constituted dynamical model of MWC which will be used in simulator platform to simulate the real movements of wheelchair and to generate the force feedback (haptics) during the push phase (hand-to-rim contact). With focus on the performance of wheelchair at the low-speed region, this model comprised the tire-road contact forces and the influence of the front free caster wheels. Validation experiments simulating several typical daily maneuvers of the manual wheelchair were conducted. Compared to previous research, the new model presented in this paper overcomes the problem of overestimating the the yaw rate.