Test Bench Realization and Application of Specific Working Cycles for the Characterization of Wheelchair Electrical Drives

The life quality of motion disabled people is increased by the use of more and more sophisticated electrical wheelchairs. Despite the diffusion of such aid tools, specific technical standards for the determination of characteristic parameters of their electric drives are not so developed as the ones available for urban electric vehicles. In this paper, in order to define new technical standards for wheelchairs electrical drives, a wheelchair test bench has been purposely carried out. Moreover two specific working cycles, previously conceived and defined by some of the Authors to characterize the performances of the propulsion systems suitable for electrical wheelchair applications, have been here implemented into the test bench and exploited to test an electrical wheelchair. The tests results are particularly suitable to characterize the propulsion drive of the wheelchair.