Design and Integration of Dual Power Wheels with Rim Motors for a Powered Wheelchair

This study presents the design and integration of dual power wheels for a novel powered wheelchair driven by rim motors. Each power wheel is composed of a power train of a rim motor, drive, hybrid electromagnetic brake and battery bank. The installation of dual power wheels turns a manual foldable wheelchair into a powered wheelchair. The multifunctional optimisation design of two critical components, the rim motor and hybrid electromagnetic brake, is first introduced. A driving strategy is then proposed for the wheelchair with a stable soft-starting control, dual-wheel differential speed control, three-phase short-circuit brake control and magnetic particle brake control. The experimental results show that the novel powered wheelchair has better power economy than most commercial products in terms of driving range. © 2012 The Institution of Engineering and Technology.