Design of Multifunctional pedal-actuated wheelchair for locomotion and rehabilitation training

Patients with lower limb disabilities have caused a great burden both to society and themselves. The combination of wheelchair and cycling achieves both locomotion and rehabilitation training at the same time, which meets their needs. This paper presents a new multifunctional electric wheelchair with a rehabilitation training module based on our previous research. We remove the exoskeleton and replace it with the leg structure of the user to form a crank-rocker mechanism. The rehabilitation module can now be adjusted forward and backward or hidden under the wheelchair completely. We also replace the force sensors with software to detect users’ intentions. A new friendly human-computer interface is designed to enable users to control the wheelchair easier. Experiments are conducted on several volunteers. Meanwhile, more than 100 people in a hospital and a nursing home have tried our product, which obtains a high praise rate. Experiment data is presented and analyzed to test the functions of the new design, and results show that our design can meet the need for rehabilitation and locomotion of different people.