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US 6,202,773 B1Granted
Motorized wheelchairs
AssigneeInvacare Corporation
InventorsJoseph B. Richey, II, Theodore D. Wakefield, II
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A motorized wheelchair is advantageously provided with a rate-of-turn feedback sensor and with forward/reverse motion, lateral motion, and vertical motion acceleration feedback sensors that are integrated into a closed-loop wheelchair servo control system to differentially control the rotational speed of wheelchair opposed motor-driven wheels and thereby obtain improved wheelchair motion stability through reduction/elimination of likely wheelchair spin-out and wheelchair tipping during wheelchair operation.
Claims10
In a motorized wheelchair assembly, comprising:
- a wheelchair chassis;
- a motor-driven right wheel connected to and providing rolling support for said wheelchair chassis;
- a motor-driven left wheel connected to and providing rolling support for said wheelchair chassis;
- a castor subassembly connected to and providing rolling support for said wheelchair chassis;
- an input device which generates wheelchair chassis turn direction command signals and wheelchair chassis linear velocity command signals in response to wheelchair operator manipulation;
- and
- a closed-loop controller subassembly receiving command signals from said input device and generating output control signals that regulate the rotational speeds of each of said motor-driven right and left wheels in response to differences between said input device turn direction and linear velocity command signals and detected wheelchair chassis actual turn directions and actual turn rates.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.