輪型機器人於電動輪椅設計之應用研究

Abstract

在面對崎嶇不平的路面與障礙物時，具有跨越障礙能力的輪型機器人的應用顯得極為重要。在現實生活中，一般的電動輪椅仍無法克服路面斷差的跨障問題，在「無障礙空間」尚未完備的現狀下，具備跨障能力的需求是非常重要的。本研究設計一種具跨障能力的輪型機器人，以置放墊塊的方式分段減小台階的斷差高度，使輪型機器人能以較小的馬達扭力需求跨越一般同輪徑載具所不能跨越的台階，並將本研究設計應用於各種需要跨障功能的交通工具上(本論文以電動輪椅為例)。針對提高跨障功能的設計方面，本研究採用CIDM Lab.將輪型機器人結合跨障輔助的創新構想進行繪製設計一種具墊塊輔助的輪型機器人機構，將此輪型機器人應用於電動輪椅，使之具備跨越台階的功能，並在本研究中進行各項跨障效益的分析與實測，使其具備實用的功效。 本論文在輔助墊塊作動機制所加裝的觸碰牽動機構的分析中應用了有關機構設計與機械利益的理論，並利用MATLAB軟體撰寫程式，設定空間限制以及可接受的機械利益的範圍，能有效且迅速的得到機構的最佳設計尺寸。墊塊機構設計的模擬與實驗中運用了彈簧累加能量以及驅動馬達電流強度量測的方法，比較具墊塊機構輔助與不具墊塊機構輔助的輪子跨越台階的效果，確認了輔助跨障墊塊機構的設計讓輪型機器人能以較小的馬達扭力需求跨越一般同輪徑的輪型載具所不能登上的台階。 經過系統化的跨障機構功能的分析與測試後，本研究進一步將具有實效的跨障機構改裝成可電腦程式控制驅動的自動化機器，逐漸實現輪型機器人輔助跨障功能的電動輪椅雛型系統，並將進一步擴充改善此系統，使其更為實用以造福社會。

The wheel robot was proposed and designed for assisting the powered wheelchair climbing up or over the high stepped obstacles. Nowadays, the general powered wheelchair is requested to provide a function of climbing high step obstacles for more market share. It is really helpful to have step-climbing system on a wheelchair when the living environment lacks of the public facilities of “Barrier-Free Space”. This research proposed a novel design of wheel robot which providing a function of step-climbing. The key concept is to design a robot hand to settle a cushion block for assisting wheelchair climbing over a high step with smaller motor torsion demand. This research can be applied to various kinds of step-climbing transportation devices (powered wheelchair was illustrated as an example). This research adopted CIDM Lab. Innovative idea to build the wheel robot with the Auxiliary Step-Climbing Mechanism System (ASCMS). Following this idea we have successfully drawn and designed a wheel robot with the ASCMS, and applied to a general powered wheelchair for assisting to cross over the step obstacle. There are two major functional units in ASCMS such as trigger device and cushion block auto loading device. The trigger device has been specially designed on behalf of the mechanical advantage evaluation of trigger linkage. The cushion block auto loading device composes of several mechanical units: auto clutching gearing unit，cushion block handling unit， cushion block driving unit and cushion block play back unit etc. For evaluating the efficiency of the proposed ASCMS in the wheel robot system, two practical methods and experiments had been applied and installed for providing the energy consuming and motor driving torque data. On behalf of the evaluation from the experimental data, the proposed wheel robot with ASCMS system has demonstrated as a valuable and more efficient step-climbing system for general powered wheelchair system. The innovative and useful concept can also be extended to the application of any other step-climbing transportation system.