This paper describes a novel stair-climbing wheelchair operated by human upper body using lever propelled rotary-legs with posture transition mechanism. The design principle of this wheelchair is to make use of the user's latent upper body capability, with appropriate mechanisms to enable extended functionality of the regular wheelchair without the need of heavy, expensive mechanisms or electric motors. An arm-operated mechanism allows the user to overcome steps and stairs independently without any external power source. The developed wheelchair consists of manual wheels with casters for planar locomotion, which provides capabilities equivalent to a regular manual wheelchair. In addition, the wheelchair has a rotary-legs mechanism based on lever propulsion control for climbing stairs. It also has a passive mechanism powered by gas springs for posture transition to shift the user's center of gravity between two positions for planar locomotion and for stair-climbing. The proposed design consists of only passive components, which makes the wheelchair more compact and lightweight. In this paper we describe in detail the development of this wheelchair and an investigation of how users can climb stairs independently. We also present evaluation experiments with a healthy participant and a dummy to investigate the feasibility of the proposed design.

本文描述了一种新型的爬楼梯轮椅，它是由人类上半身使用带有状态转换机构的杠杆推动旋转腿操作的。该轮椅的设计原理是利用用户潜在的上身能力，并通过适当的机构实现常规轮椅的扩展功能，而无需笨重，昂贵的机构或电动机。手臂操作机构使用户无需任何外部电源即可独立克服台阶和楼梯。开发的轮椅由带脚轮的手动轮组成，用于平面运动，其功能与普通手动轮椅相同。此外，轮椅还具有基于杠杆推进控制的旋转腿机构，用于攀登楼梯。它还具有一个由气弹簧驱动的被动机构，用于进行姿态转换，以在两个位置之间移动用户的重心，以进行平面运动和爬楼梯。提议的设计仅包含无源组件，这使轮椅更加紧凑和轻巧。在本文中，我们详细描述了这种轮椅的发展以及对用户如何独立爬楼梯的调查。我们还提出了一个健康参与者和一个假人的评估实验，以研究所提出设计的可行性。在本文中，我们详细描述了这种轮椅的发展以及对用户如何独立爬楼梯的调查。我们还提出了一个健康参与者和一个假人的评估实验，以研究所提出设计的可行性。在本文中，我们详细描述了这种轮椅的发展以及对用户如何独立爬楼梯的调查。我们还提出了一个健康参与者和一个假人的评估实验，以研究所提出设计的可行性。