Development Of Wheelchair Simulator Based On Virtual Reality Technology

Title: Development of Wheelchair Simulator based on Virtual Reality TechnologyMajor: Mechanical Electronic EngineeringAdvisor: Prof. Zhao DingxuanIn recent years, with the rapid development of aging society, the normalization philosophy (there are barriers to people who can be the same as the barrier-free life and conduct social activities for the target) is becoming deep. The importance of that the elderly, the disabled and other people in their daily lives can be self-reliant, and to ensure that they can participate in social activities has greatly enhanced. For the elderly and the disabled, the wheelchair is the most representative move tool. It has great significance to broaden the use of wheelchairs for the elderly and the disabled to broaden the scope of their activities. Therefore, the public transport of the wheelchair accessibility of users has become essential.For public transport normalization requirements, a number of Law of Protection of Disabled Persons established the relevant technical standards. Especially for ships, because when people with disabilities travel by boat, due to the long time needed to stay on board, the opportunity and necessity become greatly. What is more, the ship with much more shaking than the vehicle on land, the psychological tension of people with disabilities in moving will increase greatly. Therefore, the wheelchair can't be easily manipulated by the passenger on its own will, the moving wheelchair is likely to change direction of travel and may crash into the wall because of the rocking of the ship. In order to make sure that wheelchairs can't crash the wall of road side, the above questions needs be evaluated carefully and discussed on the design stage of ship manufacture.VR (Virtual Reality) technology in the evaluation and discussion of the role has been very prominent. VR technology in the welfare area, mostly of it are used as rehabilitation training, it has the great advantages of ensure the safety of the trainers. The application of virtual reality technology in welfare area makes the using of welfare facilities for training and rehabilitation training easier and safer. In the building design phase, put building models into VR space, and buildings within the same virtual space for wheelchairs ride simulation, can be related to barrier-free building design-oriented evaluation and reference. And the use of virtual reality methods, not only makes the design becomes simple and effective, and can greatly reduce the cost of the design phase, which is in the building and vehicle design, quality-oriented, low-cost, shorten the design time in an effective manner. According to current research, the initial production of a wheelchair movement of virtual simulation system is founded, which consists of three systems (images show, gradient show and force show). The specify information: the virtual space systems can output the CG (Computer Graphics) image by the Head Mounted Display, the six-axis shaking devices provide gradient show, force show be carried by the torque sensor and servo motor system. Combination of these three systems effectively, making the virtual space to experience a sense of the actual wheelchair driving this requirement becomes possible.However, the current researches based on the buildings on the land, but for the ship, which is influenced by a variety of external conditions and can bring complex result ,has not been thought fully. In this study established a mathematical model of the wheelchair moving, the model can be used not only to land-based building simulation, the same applies to the ship's space simulation. And that the mathematical model is applied to the wheelchair simulator development. The rider can reproduce in the virtual space, movement and turning movements by manipulating the wheelchair wheels.This research work completed and the results achieved are summarized as follows:1. The establishment of wheelchair experience simulator which contains the virtual space prompted system, the force prompted system and the shaking felt prompted system. This simulator can achieve the objective of wheelchair moving at a fixed or rocking virtual space. Making to feel a sense of the actual wheelchair journey in the virtual space becomes possible, achieved basic support to designed objective.2. When the wheelchair moving on an incline, the pitch of gravity of the wheelchair had a certain influence to moving track, the mathematical models used previously did not take into account the effect of gravity, so real sense is not enough when moving on an incline, In order to eliminate this impact, this study set up a new mathematical model, in the model the influence of gravity items is attached, enabling the system to better reflect the wheelchair in the ship's movement trends.3. Establishing a simulation mathematical model of the ship shaking and use six-axis shaking agencies to achieve the ship rocking in the waves, through evaluate the free living degree of wheelchair users on board as a evaluation of ship design rationality, re-examine the ship design.4. Because wheelchair moving in the VR space is very different with wheelchairs actual movement, it is necessary to evaluation the system's barriers, and get more reasonable results. With the compare with the actual measurement results test its effectiveness, and improved the deficiencies. So that the system can achieve at least the bottom line that the reality of the wheelchair movement in VR space can effectively reproduced. This study provide Wheelchair Simulator based on Virtual Reality Technology that can be applied to public places in land, or the ship's design process. This simulator provides a good tool to achieve barrier-free designing. Though the results of experiments we can get the conclusion that this system has been achieve this initial purpose.