Development of Omnidirectional Electric Wheelchair with Zabuton Sensor

In this paper, we propose an Omnidirectional Electric Wheelchair (OEW). The proposed OEW has four omniwheels for the omnidirectional movement. Two of the omniwheels are arranged to X-axis direction and the other two are arranged to Y-axis direction. By controlling the movement of the omniwheels, the OEW can instantaneously rotate and move in all directions. Hence that, especially in the narrow spaced indoor environment, the omnidirectional nature of the OEW has an advantage over the standard wheelchair. Furthermore, the operator’s posture is used as signal to the OEW. The operator’s posture is measured by a “Zabuton sensor” which uses a pressure sensor to measure the pressure distribution. The effectiveness of proposed the system is reflected by the experimental results of the prototype OEW and Zabuton sensor system.