ANALYSIS OF DRIVING FORCE IN WHEELCHAIR PROPULSION USING THE DRIVING FORCE CONTRIBUTION FIGURE

摘要

We propose the concept of the driving force contribution figure(DFCF)to clarify how efficient the user accomplishes the wheelchair propulsion. The DFCF expresses the direction cosine of generated force on the handrim to the tangential direction. If the DFCF takes large value along the driving force direction, it means the applied force acts efficiently for wheelchair propulsion. In order to show the effectiveness of DFCF, we measured the driving motion of the upper limb, hand force applied to the handrim, and the individual’s muscular power characteristics for eight experienced wheelchair users. From the experimental data, it is shown that the users start driving the handrim at such posture where it is difficult to generate required hand force to drive the wheelchair. It is also shown that the users are driving the wheelchair taking the load of the upper limb and the efficiency of the wheelchair propulsion into consideration.