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ABSTRACT
In many developing nations like Nigeria, electric wheelchairs are a luxury very few can afford. The prices of electric wheelchairs are outrageous when compared to manual wheelchairs. This price range leads institutions like hospitals and average income earners to rely heavily on these manual versions. Although they are affordable, manual wheelchairs require the user to propel them. This process can be exhausting and often leads many wheelchair bound individuals to seek assistance from “helpers” to move around. In a bid to solve this problem of easy mobility and independence, this project is aimed at upgrading the manual wheelchair through the development of a low cost electric drive for a commercially available manual wheelchair. CAD modelling was done using Solidworks tools and the performance characteristics of the drive unit was analysed using simscape so as to obtain the optimum battery capacity and motor rating for the drive unit. The electrical drive unit was to be fastened to the base of the wheelchair using damper which helps to absorb the vibration between the motor and the user. Batteries were used as source of power for the motor connected to the wheel. The design is kept simple and locally sourced materials were used without compromising on the functionality, safety and operational characteristic of the wheelchair From the simulation carried out it was found that the least battery capacity to meet an average 5hours duration of drive is 7Ah while the least motor rating for the wheel chair is 0.25kw. The adaptive drive unit presented in this work can be used in a wide variety of models of wheelchairs and is functional, safe, and economically viable
