Stair-climbing Wheelchair: A Review on Mechanism, Safety, and Performance Evaluation

This paper reviewed the mechanism and safety and evaluated the performance of a stair-climbing electric wheelchair (EW). The first step is to gather and summarize the features of stairs, analyze the requirements for stair-climbing, and then collect all the possible stair-climbing methods that are suitable for a wheelchair; the third step is to put forward an evaluation criterion and evaluate all the air-climbing wheelchairs. The core of the wheelchair: the motor drive scheme is analyzed in special. As the stairs in the different areas differ, a summary of the stairs is necessary. As there is no mainstream stair-climbing method in the wheelchair sector yet, this paper collected and reviewed all the possible solutions. As safety is the core requirement of stair-climbing, a set of criteria is set and used to evaluate the stair-climbing method. As more and more people need mobility aid, especially with stair-climbing requirements, this paper will benefit these individuals and society.