Impact Responses and Parameters Sensitivity Analysis of Electric Wheelchairs

The shock and vibration of electric wheelchairs undergoing road irregularities is inevitable. The road excitation causes the uneven magnetic gap of the motor, and the harmful vibration decreases the recovery rate of rehabilitation patients. To effectively suppress the shock and vibration, this paper introduces the DA (dynamic absorber) to the electric wheelchair. Firstly, a vibration model of the human-wheelchair system with the DA was created. The models of the road excitation for wheelchairs going up a step and going down a step were proposed, respectively. To reasonably evaluate the impact level of the human-wheelchair system undergoing the step–road transition, evaluation indexes were given. Moreover, the created vibration model and the road–step model were validated via tests. Then, to reveal the vibration suppression performance of the DA, the impact responses and the amplitude frequency characteristics were numerically simulated and compared. Finally, a sensitivity analysis of the impact responses to the tire static radius r and the characteristic parameters was carried out. The results show that the DA can effectively suppress the shock and vibration of the human-wheelchair system. Moreover, for the electric wheelchair going up a step and going down a step, there are some differences in the vibration behaviors.