Design of a Retrofittable non-Frictional Locking Mechanism for Manual Wheelchairs

With a significant amount of the global population of around sixty-five million people requiring a wheelchair, of which seventy percent need a manual wheelchair, there is a pressing need to address the problems faced by such patients. Paraplegic and some quadriplegic patients who rely on manual wheelchairs find it extremely difficult to exert physical forces to actuate the existing wheelchair locks and brakes. Moreover, they are inefficient in the long run as they rely on friction. Thus, there is a need to develop a better and more efficient locking mechanism that would improve the day-to-day activities of such wheelchair users. This paper discusses the design of a novel locking mechanism that is retrofittable onto any manual wheelchair. As opposed to conventional locks and brakes, the proposed design is non-friction based.