Abstract This report describes an automatic control system that allows an assistive robot pushing a wheelchair to climb steps. The robot is equipped with a wheeled mechanism and dual manipulators. The wheelchair is a commercially available model that has been equipped with sensors, circuits, and batteries. The robot and wheelchair are connected when the vehicles climb a step. In that operation, the front wheels of the wheelchair are lifted and placed on the step using the velocity differences between the wheelchair and the robot. Next, when the rear wheels of the wheelchair ascend the step, the robot imitates the upper arm motions of a human pushing against his/her chest that commonly occurs when maneuvering a wheelchair up a step. Similarly, the front wheels of the robot are lifted and placed on the step using the velocity differences between the vehicles and the robot’s front wheels. After that, with the assistance of the wheelchair, the other wheels of the robot climb onto the step. In an effort to ensure safety, we also performed a theoretical analysis to determine the most suitable distance for lifting the front wheels of the robot when approaching and climbing a step. Our newly developed cooperative step-climbing system makes it possible to eliminate the complicated operations that were required by previous methods and can also prevent collisions between the wheelchair’s front wheels and the step, thus drastically improving the convenience of the operation. The test subject riding the wheelchair was an able-bodied male, and the experiment conducted to evaluate our system was performed on a 120 mm step height that had a friction coefficient of 0.72. This setup was sufficient for demonstrating the overall effectiveness of our system.

中文翻译：

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使用自主轮椅和机器人的合作爬坡策略

摘要 本报告描述了一种自动控制系统，该系统允许辅助机器人推动轮椅爬楼梯。该机器人配备有轮式机构和双机械手。轮椅是一种市售型号，配备了传感器、电路和电池。当车辆爬上台阶时，机器人和轮椅连接起来。在该操作中，利用轮椅和机器人之间的速度差将轮椅的前轮提升并放置在台阶上。接下来，当轮椅的后轮登上台阶时，机器人会模仿人类推着他/她的胸部的上臂动作，这种动作通常在操纵轮椅上台阶时发生。相似地，利用车辆和机器人前轮之间的速度差，将机器人的前轮抬起并放置在台阶上。之后，在轮椅的帮助下，机器人的其他轮子爬上台阶。为了确保安全，我们还进行了理论分析，以确定在接近和爬楼梯时机器人前轮的最合适抬起距离。我们新开发的协同爬梯系统，可以免去以往方法所需要的复杂操作，还可以防止轮椅前轮与踏板发生碰撞，从而大大提高了操作的便利性。乘坐轮椅的受试者是一名身体健全的男性，为评估我们的系统而进行的实验是在 120 毫米台阶高度上进行的，其摩擦系数为 0.72。此设置足以证明我们系统的整体有效性。