Design and Experimental Verification of Vibration Suppression Device on the Lift of Wheelchair-accessible Vehicles

In recent years, the number of wheelchair-accessible vehicles has increased with the aging of the population. Such vehicles are effective in reducing the burden on caregivers because the wheelchair user does not have to move from his/her wheelchair to a seat of the vehicle. Wheelchair-accessible vehicles are expected to be widely used in the future. However, wheelchair users have reported poor ride comfort. It is thus necessary to suppress the vibration of the vehicle considering the wheelchair user. We designed a passive damping device on the lift of wheelchair-accessible vehicles to improve the ride comfort for wheelchair users. The vibration due to road disturbances reaches the wheelchair user's body through the vehicle and wheelchair. Our control device decreases the acceleration of the torso and improves the ride comfort by ensuring that the frequency of the vibration reaching the wheelchair user differs from the resonance frequency band of the acceleration of the torso, which is the body part that feels the most discomfort. The effectiveness of the control device is verified experimentally.