International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research Vol. 9, No.

6, June 2020

Design and Implementation of an Electric

Wheelchair Operating in Different Terrains
Pham Quoc Thai, Van Cong Tai, Le Minh Tien
The University of Danang, University of Science and Technology,
Faculty of Transportation Mechanical Engineering, 54 Nguyen Luong Bang Street, Danang City, Vietnam
Email: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract—Wheelchairs are essential assistive devices for automatically inform the relatives of the user as occurring
many people with disabilities. This paper describes the any problems with the wheelchair.
design and implementation of an environmentallyfriendly, The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section II
flexible electric wheelchair that can change sitting postures describes the design of the wheelchair, including
according to the user’s demand and can change its structure
mechanical and control system design. The results of the
to operate in different terrains. Furthermore, a safety
system that observes and informs the wheelchair user about
research are presented in Section III. Section IV covers
the operating status of the wheelchair such as speed, conclusions and future work.
temperature, and tilt angle, and about the health status of
the user such as heart rate, was developed. Additionally, II. DESIGN OF AN ELECTRIC WHEELCHAIR
experimental results showed that the proposed wheelchair
operated stably at a speed of 5 km/h and a load of 65 kg, and A. Mechanical Design
the effectiveness of the safety system was also clearly
confirmed.
In order to travel in different terrains, the electric
wheelchair is designed with flexible structure, as
Index Terms—electric wheelchair, sensor, electronic control described in Fig. 1.
unit, calculation, simulation

I. INTRODUCTION
Wheelchairs are essential assistive devices for many
the elderly and the disabled who have difficulty in a
body-movement and encounter physical challenges [1],
[2]. In developing countries, conventional wheelchairs
that use human power, providing a low-cost solution, a) b)
have attracted by many users. However, a person
operating an affordable wheelchair with their hands may
lead to a stiff muscle and limitation of hand activity [3].
Compare with conventional wheelchairs, electric
wheelchairs that use electrical power have several
advantages such as reducing human power and lower risk
of strain-induced injuries [4][12]. Consequently, electric
wheelchairs have been increasingly become popular in
c) d)
recent years [13]. Nevertheless, it is still a challenging
task for conventional or electric wheelchairs to overcome Figure 1. The step-climbing stages of the wheelchair. a) Start climbing;
b) -c) During climbing; d) Complete the climbing.
the existing environmental barriers such as the building
or civil infrastructure stairs [14]. Especially for some The proposed wheelchair is driven by two rear wheels
users living in a building without an elevator, it is (No. 4) using two electric motors. Moreover, the
difficult for them to travel up and down the stairs using a wheelchair can move forward and backward, turn left and
standard electric wheelchair. right via acting operation panel (No. 9) on the armrest.
Therefore, this study proposed a flexible electric that Besides, the position of the seat (No. 8) can be adjusted
can overcome different terrains and change sitting using electric cylinders (No. 1 and No. 7), and the
postures according to the user’s demand. Furthermore, in wheelchair can change the structure to overcome terrace
this study, we developed a safety system that can terrains using a screw motor (No. 2) and an electric
cylinder (No. 5). Fig. 2 describes the details of the
proposed electric wheelchair, and Table I presents the
Manuscript received August 15, 2019; revised April 12, 2020.
overall parameters of the proposed wheelchair.

© 2020 Int. J. Mech. Eng. Rob. Res 797

doi: 10.18178/ijmerr.9.6.797-802
 International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research Vol. 9, No. 6, June 2020

Figure 4. Deformation of the frame.

With the most massive displacement of 0.0193 mm,

the wheelchair has the highest stress of 11.9 MPa,
concentrated between the bearing beam and the chassis,
as shown in Fig. 4.
The allowable pressure, according to yield strength [σ]
ch = 225 MPa [17]. Comparing yield strength, we can see
that the frame still ensures durability. Fig. 5 presents the
Figure 2. The overall layout of the designed wheelchair: 1,5,7- Electric stress of the structure.
cylinders; 2-Screw motor; 3-Battery; 4-Motors; 6-Electronic control
unit; 8- Seat; 9- Operation panel.

TABLE I. PARAMETERS OF THE DESIGNED WHEELCHAIR

No. Parameter Value Unit

1 Cover size 1200x680x1500 mm

2 Ground clearance 50 mm
3 Weight 60 kg
4 Electric motor power 2x250 W
Figure 5. The stress of the frame.
5 Max speed 7 km/h

1) Frame design 2) Powertrain

The frame of the wheelchair is an essential part of the After analyzing the dynamics of the wheelchair under
wheelchair. To ensure the structure is durable, the different operating conditions [18][20], the powertrain
material for the wheelchair includes a galvanized steel of the wheelchair was designed as in Fig. 6.
box with the following dimensions: 30x30x1.0 Two motors used for the proposed vehicle are 250W
galvanized steel box, 25x25x1.0 galvanized steel box, 12V MY1016Z DC motors with gear reduction and rotary
10x20x1.0 galvanized steel box. encoder attached to them, which have the advantages of
In the first stage, the 3D model of the wheelchair was simple installation and high torque output, as shown in
designed using CATIA V5R21 software. The 3D model Fig. 7. These motors were specially chosen not only for
of the frame is used to calculate the stress of structure by their ability to support the load of various weights but
using the finite element method [15][17]. The also for their ability to provide enough power to carry out
simulation results showed that the wheelchair suffered the high-performance driving. Table II shows the
most massive displacement of 0.0193 mm. Fig. 3 specifications of the motor.
indicates the model of the frame.

Figure 3. The frame of the wheelchair. Figure 6. The proposed powertrain of the wheelchair: 1 - Motor; 2 -
Coupling; 3 - Bearing; 4 - Axes; 5 - Wheel; 6 – Forelegs.

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 International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research Vol. 9, No. 6, June 2020

In this study, the controller is responsible for both

wheelchair motion control and the safety system. The
controller receives signals from the sensors, then
processes, calculates, and generates signals to control
actuators appropriate with the operational mode of the
wheelchair.
The control system consists of an Arduino Mega 2560
microcontroller covering an 8-bit, 16-MHz low-power
AVR RISC-based processor, 256KB ISP flash memory,
8KB SRAM, 4KB EEPROM. Furthermore, the
microcontroller has a diversity of input/output interfaces,
Figure 7. The electric motor. including pulse-width modulation, analog-to-digital
converters, and an inter-integrated circuit, allowing the
controller to have the ability to interface with a variety of
TABLE II. THE SPECIFICATIONS OF THE ELECTRIC MOTOR sensors and actuators. Fig. 9 and Table III describe the
pinout diagram and specifications of the microcontroller
No. Parameter Value Unit [23].
1 Electric motor power 2x250 W
2 Motor speed 2700 rpm
3 Maximum amperage 28 A
4 Voltage 12 V
Angular speed output
5 300 rpm
gearbox
6 Gear reduction 9:1

B. Control System Design Figure 9. Pinout diagram of the microcontroller.

Besides, this microcontroller is compatible with web-

Input Controller Output based C/C++ programming environment and
online/offline compiler, allowing designers to develop
and prototype embedded systems efficiently and rapidly.

TABLE III. THE SPECIFICATIONS OF THE MICROCONTROLLER

Joystick
Right
No. Parameter Value Unit
Motor
1 Operating Voltage 5 V
Control
2 Clock Speed 16 MHz
switch
Left 3 Input Voltage (recommended) 7-20 V
Motor 4 Input Voltage (limits) 6-20 V
Accelerator ELECTRONIC
sensor 5 Digital I/O Pins 54
LCD 6 Analog Input Pins 16
CONTROL Display mA
Heart rate 7 DC Current per I/O Pin 40
sensor 8 DC Current for 3.3V Pin 50 mA
UNIT 9 Flash Memory 256 KB
Cellphone
10 SRAM 8 KB
Speed sensor
11 EEPROM 4 KB

Screw For the motion control of the wheelchair, the data from
Temperature
sensor motor speed control potentiometer, joystick, angular speed
sensor, and control switches are fed to the controller.
When the wheelchair proceeds straight forward or
Electric
Cellphone backward, the speed of the wheel on both sides will be
cylinders
equal, this time, the difference in angular speed () will
be zero.
The angular speed of each wheel can be expressed as
Figure 8. Control block diagram of the designed wheelchair .

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 International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research Vol. 9, No. 6, June 2020

Left wheel: L = S + /2 (1) Additionally, the proposed wheelchair is equipped

wireless remote-control system to allow the user to
Right wheel: R = S - /2 (2) control the wheelchair remotely via cellphone. This
system helps the user can easily control the vehicle
where  and  are respective angular speeds of the left without the help of relatives. The remote-control system
L R
and right wheels of the wheelchair when the driver is based on the Bluetooth Module HC-05 that connects
applies a steering angle to the handle, and   is the the wheelchair controller with the cellphone to handle the
difference between the angular speeds of the two-vehicle wheelchair remotely. Fig. 12 indicates the cellphone
wheels.  is the factor of the angular speed of the wheels interface controlling the wheelchair.
S
that makes the vehicle travel straight.
To control the DC motors with high current, power
electronics need to be equipped. In this study, the MDL-
BDC24 motor drivers from Texas Instruments were
equipped to drive the motors by using its PWM input
signals. The driver uses dual H-bridge circuitry with
power MOSFET transistors that enable the driver to
control 12 V or 24 V DC motors up to 40A continuously
(Fig. 10). Moreover, the high-frequency PWM input
signals allow the motors to run smoothly over a wide
speed range and to change direction (forward/reverse) Figure 12. The interface of cellphone controlling the wheelchair.
quickly. Fig. 11 shows an overview of the MDL-BDC24
motor driver.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Fig. 13a and 13b describe the proposed electric
wheelchair. The experiment was conducted with ten users
of the wheelchair at the University of Danang –
University of Science and Technology campus under the
condition that the wheelchair operated in flat and terraced
terrains. Fig. 14 indicates the stair-climbing process of
the wheelchair.
The experiment results showed that the proposed
wheelchair operated smoothly, and the safety system
instantly informed the relatives of the user about
emergency problems.
Figure 10. Diagram of H-bridge circuit.

Figure 13a. The designed electric wheelchair.

Figure 11. Top view of MDL-BDC24 motor driver.

Furthermore, in this study, the safety system that

observes the operating status of the wheelchair such as
speed, temperature, tilt angle, and the health status of the
user such as heart rate was developed. As the user has
health problems or operating conditions of the wheelchair
are unsafe, the controller will send an emergency
message about the issue to the relatives of the user
through the SIM800A module so that the relatives can Figure 13b. The designed electric wheelchair.
assist the wheelchair user immediately.

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 International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research Vol. 9, No. 6, June 2020

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AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS [15] N. N. Le, Optimization and Application, Hanoi Publishing House,
2001.
Pham Quoc Thai is the corresponding author of this [16] H. Vinh, “Strength of materials,” the University of Danang - he
research work. He was in charge of the overall research University of Science and Technology, 2015.
direction and planning, control system design, and final [17] R. K. Bansal, A Textbook of Strength of Materials, Laxmi
Publications, 2017.
editing of the manuscript; Van Cong Tai contributed to [18] N. H. Viet, Design of Automotive Systems, University of Science
the mechanical design and analysis results; Le Minh Tien and Technology, the University of Danang, 2017.
conducted the safety system and the experiment. Overall, [19] P. M. Duc, “Automotive theory,” the University of Danang -
all authors had approved the final version. University of Science and Technology, 2016.
[20] N. H. Can, Design and Calculation Of Automobile, vol. 1,2,3,
Vietnam Education Publishing House, 1984.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT [21] T. Q. Pham, C. Nakagawa, A. Shintani, and T. Ito, “Evaluation of
the Effects of a Personal Mobility Vehicle on Multiple Pedestrians
This research is funded by Funds for Science and Using Personal Space,” IEEE Transactions on Intelligent
Technology Development of the University of Danang Transportation Systems, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 2028–2037, 2015.
under project number B2019-DN02-60 and also [22] T. Q. Pham, C. Nakagawa, A. Shintani. and T. Ito, "The effect of a
semi-active driving assistance system on the driver of a four-
supported by the University of Danang, University of wheeled personal mobility vehicle," International Journal of
Science and Technology under project number T2019-02- Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, vol. 6, no. 4, pp.
45. 322–326, 2017.
[23] S. Monk, Programming Arduino: Getting Started with
Sketches (2nd Edition), McGrawHill Education, 2016.
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 International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research Vol. 9, No. 6, June 2020

Copyright © 2020 by the authors. This is an open access article Van Cong Tai received the B.S. degree in
distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY- mechanical engineering from University of
NC-ND 4.0), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any Science and Technology, the University of
medium, provided that the article is properly cited, the use is non- Danang, Danang, Vietnam, in 2019.
commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. He has been a teaching assistant at Faculty
of Transportation Mechanical Engineering,
Pham Quoc Thai received the B.S. and M.S. University of Science and Technology, the
degrees in control engineering and automation University of Danang, Vietnam, since 2019.
from University of Science and Technology, His study interests include simulation,
the University of Danang, Danang, Vietnam, in automotive structure, control of vehicles,
2005 and 2009, respectively, and the Ph.D. automotive electronics and electrical
degree in mechanical engineering from Osaka systems, and intelligent transportation systems.
Prefecture University, Japan in 2017.
Since 2006 he has been a Lecturer with the
Faculty of Transportation Mechanical Le Minh Tien received the B.S., M.S., and
Engineering, University of Science and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from
Technology, the University of Danang, and a University of Science and Technology, the
Senior Lecturer since 2020. He was the Vice Dean in 2017 and has been University of Danang, Danang, Vietnam, in
Dean of Faculty of Transportation Mechanical Engineering since 2018. 2003, 2008, and 2014, respectively.
His study interests include modelling, simulation, control of vehicles, He has been a Lecturer at the Faculty of
automotive electronics and electrical systems, and intelligent Transportation Mechanical Engineering,
transportation systems. University of Science and Technology, the
Dr. Pham has been a recipient of the Japanese Government (MEXT) University of Danang since 2016. His study
Scholarship for his study in Japan. Since December 2015, he has served interests include simulation, control of
as the Reviewer of IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation vehicles, automotive electronics and electrical
Systems, International Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems systems, and intelligent transportation systems.
Research, and International Journal of Sustainable Transportation. He He is a member of the GATEC Teaching-Research Team
also served as the Section Co-Chair of the 2015 International (http://dongcobiogas.com/en) of the University.
Conference on Integrated and Sustainable Transportation.

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