Abstract
Manually operated wheelchairs play a very crucial role in the life of physically disabled people. Movement over a good distance on manual wheelchairs is burdensome. Electric wheelchairs are recommended for people who experience problems in utilizing a manual wheelchair due to impairing physical conditions. Electric wheelchairs are suitable for indoor use, open-air use, or even both. However, commercially available electric wheelchairs are very costly and cannot be afforded by majority of people in economically developing countries. Therefore, a need was felt to envisage a rudimentary low-cost detachable power unit for a commercially available manual wheelchair. Computer-aided design was used to achieve suitable design visualizations. Methods for fabricating the power unit involved attaching a frame to a wheel and a steering handle. Batteries were taken as the source of power for the speed-controlled hub motor connected to the wheel. The low-cost detachable power unit can be attached and detached to the commercially available basic manual wheelchair. However, in order to keep the cost low, the design was kept simple and locally available materials were selected without compromising on safety, functionality, and operational features of the wheelchair. It was evident that the designed and fabricated cost effective detachable power unit can be afforded by most of the people in developing countries like India. There is ample scope for further improvement in the design based on engineering analysis and incorporating human-centered ergonomics design concepts without increasing the overall cost of the detachable power unit.
