WO1998023239A1

WO1998023239A1 - A motor-assisted wheel chair and a driving mechanism therefor

Info

Publication number: WO1998023239A1
Application number: PCT/JP1997/004171
Authority: WO
Inventors: Ichiro Fujioka
Original assignee: Ichiro Fujioka
Priority date: 1996-11-23
Filing date: 1997-11-17
Publication date: 1998-06-04
Also published as: CN1209737A

Abstract

A motor-assisted wheel chair detects an input of man power and its motor (1) supplies auxiliary power in accordance with the input. The output of the motor (1) is controlled by switching a plurality of storage batteries in a driving circuit either to a series or a parallel. The output of the motor (1) is transmitted to wheels (5) through gears (3).

Description

Electric assist wheelchair and its driving mechanism

Battery tt ki machine

Technical field

D of the present invention relates to an electric machine equipped with a battery, which eliminates the need for a so-called charging IS device at the time of charging, uses external energy such as solar power at the time of discharging, and reduces electromagnetic wave noise generated at the time of discharging.

The second invention relates to a simple and silent wheel drive mechanism in an electric vehicle equipped with a battery.

The third aspect of the present invention relates to a light automatic assist wheelchair utilizing the most widely used mechanism of a manual wheelchair.

Background art

There are many electric machines with batteries, such as electric vehicles, transport vehicles, video cameras, and portable computers.

The batteries used for these are often one voltage (DC). To fill this battery, there are many ways to charge the battery by rectifying the AC voltage (commercial power source) with a so-called charger.

This charger is cumbersome for the user (cord, heavy, different for each manufacturer, etc.), and the price is correspondingly higher.

In addition, in order to charge this single battery from a power source whose voltage fluctuates, such as a solar power source or a wind power source, a separate controller must not convert the fluctuating voltage to a constant voltage. In this case, there was a disadvantage that the loss was large.

Furthermore, when supplying a variable power to a motor or the like, it was necessary to supply a pulse using a separately provided control device. The steepness of this pulse also has the disadvantage of generating electromagnetic noise.o

One of the objects of the present invention is to eliminate such disadvantages.

As a method of driving an electric vehicle, there are a general method of driving the center axis of a wheel and a method of driving near the outer periphery of a wheel.

It is known that the latter has a lower number of gears than the former due to high speed and low torque, and can be driven by a motor (with less loss).

In the latter case, a few kilograms of pressing against the tire is required to drive the tire itself with the rollers without slipping, and the loss is large. There is also a method of driving by providing an uneven gear on the outer periphery of the wheel. In this case, the drive is performed even if it is not pressed strongly, but there is a disadvantage that a sound is generated when the teeth of the concave and convex gear and the uneven drive roller collide.

The second of the present invention is to eliminate such disadvantages.

The third aspect of the present invention relates to an electric wheelchair (captive type).

Various wheelchairs are commercially available. The main one is to convert the movement of the lever or handle at hand to an air signal, and to supply power to the motor from the battery.

This vehicle had drawbacks such as being heavy and lack of unity with movement.

The third aspect of the present invention is to eliminate such drawbacks in a direction that does not change a manual wheelchair. Replacement form (Rule 26) Disclosure of the invention

A first aspect of the present invention is to prepare a plurality of batteries and connect them with parallel / serial switching elements, thereby enabling direct charging from a variable power supply such as a commercial power supply or a solar power supply by switching. At the same time, it shows that it is possible to directly generate various types of free-form waveforms, especially pulses with little magnetic wave noise, by switching.

As a second aspect of the present invention, a guide roller is newly provided for a wheel outer periphery driving mechanism, so that a small number of clearances are provided in the concave-convex gears on the driving side and the driven side, so that there is no hitting sound and the sound is reliably generated. We propose a mechanism that can be driven.

As a third invention, it is shown that an electric assist wheelchair, which is not much different from the conventional manual one, is possible by connecting the handrail of a manual wheelchair to the wheels with a panel and attaching a wheel-shaped reflector. . Simple explanation of the drawing

Description of the drawings

Fig. 1 shows an example of the configuration of the charging / discharging device. Based on this configuration, Fig. 2, Fig. 3, and Fig. 4 show the commercial power source waveform and charging timing, the charging amount of each battery, and the new method, respectively. Figure 3 shows the pulse width modulation (PWM) waveform. FIG. 5 shows the remaining charge ft of the two batteries. Fig. 6 shows an example of a wheel drive mechanism. The left figure shows an example in which the motor is parallel to the wheels, and the right figure shows an example in which the motor is at right angles. FIG. 7 shows a human power detection mechanism of the electric assist wheelchair. Replacement form (Rule 26) BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION FIG. 1 shows an example of the configuration of a charging / discharging device according to the present invention, taking a 24 volt battery as an example.

B1—B6 is a battery (Bl, 84 is 12; others are 6), SW1—SW25 is a switching element, M is a microcomputer, S is a micro panel or wind generator, II-13 is a flow detector, VI— V3 is a voltage detector, T is an external (charging vehicle) terminal, M is a motor, AC is a commercial power terminal, and Rs is a current limiting resistor.

FIG. 2 shows an operation waveform diagram in the case of charging from a commercial power supply.

FIG. 3 shows an operation waveform diagram in the case of pulse width modulation discharge.

The operation will be described with reference to these figures. First, when the commercial power source has a positive half-wave, SW3, 8, 11, and 16 in Fig. 1 are turned on, and when the source voltage exceeds 6 V, the battery B3, 6. Start charging. (SW17 is OFF). When this charge reaches the specified value separately set, the existing switches are turned OFF and SW2, 8, 10, 16 are turned ON. When the power supply voltage exceeds 12 V, charging of batteries B2, 3 and B5, 6 starts.

Thereafter, SW1, 7, 9, and 15 are turned ON at 18 V and SW 1, 8, 9, and 16 are turned ON at 24 V, as described above.

Next, from 24 V to 48 V, first, SW18 is turned off and SW17 is turned on, and two battery groups are connected in series.

SW3, 16 for 30 V, 31 and 14 for 36, SW1, 42 for 42 V (Rule 26) 15 and 48 turn 5 ^ 1 and 16 ON.

In the above operation, the variation in the amount of haze of each battery is large. Therefore, in the negative half-wave of the commercial power supply voltage, SW18 is turned on and SW17 is turned off to reverse the connection of the battery group, and then the above operation is repeated. (Charging i of each battery is relatively uniform). Fig. 3 shows examples of the amount of charge at each voltage.

In the figure, Ql-Q6 is the amount of charge stored in each battery Bl-B6 (Fig. 1). Since Q3 and Q6 are small, the power to prolong the charging time during this charging \ It may be charged separately in another cycle.

Next, charging from the solar panel will be described.

In FIG. 1, S indicates a solar panel, and Vs indicates its voltage.

When the voltage of V s is high, connect to a high voltage battery, and when the sun goes down and the pressure drops, the battery becomes purple with a low voltage. (For example, turning on SW24) That is, the solar energy can be efficiently absorbed. (The same applies to wind power generation machines)

In the case of mobile vehicles such as electric vehicles, a battery-charged vehicle may be temporarily connected to the front, side, or back of the car to obtain travel energy and charging energy.

Terminal T in Fig. 1 is for taking in this energy.

For example, when the built-in battery 3 KWh is close to 0, when a 5KWh charging car is connected, and when you arrive at the next station using 2KWh, you can easily "charge while running".

If Ib, Is, Im, and Ij are the battery, solar, motor, and charging vehicle, respectively, the replacement paper (Rule 26) Im = Ij— Ib + Is

That is, by measuring each current at every moment, the amount of charge of the battery can be managed.

In addition, in order to charge while driving, energy may be supplemented by contact or non-contact from the guardrail or the road surface, but consent for public works is required.

Next, the discharge is described.

Various releases are possible depending on how the switch shown in Fig. 1 is inserted.

For example, to output only DC 12 V, SW10, SW16 and SW9, SW14 should be alternately set to 0N and OFF, which can be used for portable electronic equipment in general.

If switching besides DC is performed in the same way as during charging, AC voltage can be generated, and it can be used as an uninterrupted haze device. (However, increase the number of batteries).

Here, we propose a new type of PWM for frequency modulation and pulse width modulation (PWM-of course, such a radiation is possible, but one is often used) for motor drive.

Fig. 5 shows this waveform, and the way to output the waveform from 6 V to 24 V is the same as switching during flooding. (However, reverse switch)

The difference is that the time until the next switch is constant and short.

In the figure, the frequency is 5 KHz (T indicates one cycle = 200 usee). Switching is performed every 4 usee, and becomes 24 V after 16 usee.

X is a command value of how much output is to be output. If it is large, the time to maintain 24 V is long (長 large, about 200 usee), and if X is small, it is 24, 18, 12, 6, 0 v Replacement forms (Rule 26) And descend. (Even if x = o, it will be a pulse with a considerable area. If you want a smaller area, generate it with a normal PWM.) This is called step PWM.

Since the voltage changes in four steps, high-frequency noise (锺 magnetic wave noise) is reduced to 1 to 4 and malfunctions of other equipment and inductive losses can be avoided. This method can also be applied to frequency modulation.

Now, it is known that NiCad (NiCd) batteries have a memory effect. According to Fig. 4, a method to avoid this is described.

B7 is a left (group) battery, B8 is a right (group) battery, L indicates a charge level of 10%, and diagonal lines indicate that the battery is charged.

Initially, the left and right batteries are fully charged.

The discharge is left and right at the same time until the L level, but when the L level is reached, only the right battery discharges until it is empty, and then the left discharge starts. (At the same time, an alarm informs the user that charging is required, and internally writes the flag = "right".) After charging, discharging to the L level again is the same as the previous method After that, the battery with no flag (left in this case) is discharged until it becomes 0, and the flag = left.

When the battery is discharged in this manner, the battery is used up alternately, so that the effect of the memory can be eliminated, and the battery can be used without discarding the remaining charge (to be used next time).

This method can be applied even when the left and right batteries are each one. Replacement form (Rule 26) The above-described information processing of charging and discharging may be performed by the computer C of the microphone opening shown in FIG. Next, the drive mechanism of the electric vehicle will be described.

FIG. 6 shows two examples of the wheel drive unit according to the present invention.

One of the conventional driving methods is a method in which unevenness is provided around the wheel and driven by a motor with uneven rollers (left in the figure). As a countermeasure against the wheel run-out, the motor is swung, and the force is applied by pressing against the wheel outer periphery.

As a method of eliminating this noise, the uneven portion may be formed in a helical tooth shape and always contact. (Is expensive)

A structural proposal that does not produce sound even with a straight tooth profile will be described with reference to FIG.

1 is a motor that swings around a fulcrum 2. A motor 3 has a gear 3 and a guide roller 4 at the end thereof, and is pressed against a partner wheel 5 by a spring 6.

The diameter of the guide roller 4 is set so that there is a slight gap between the gears. Therefore, even if the wheels 5 are twisted due to aging, the gears have a constant gap except for the portion where the driving force acts. (No rattling noise between gear teeth)

In FIG. 6, the guide roller 4 and the gear 3 are separated but may be integrated.

The example on the left side of this figure is effective when the width of the motor 1 is to be reduced, such as in an electric bicycle or a folding wheelchair, because the motor 1 is mounted parallel to the wheels 5.

In the example on the right in Fig. 6, the replacement paper (Rule 26) is used for devices that can be wide, such as electric vehicles, carts, and boats. It is convenient to apply.

Another advantage of the example in Fig. 6 is that the final gear has a large diameter, so no gear is required for torque conversion, and the loss is accordingly small.

Also, the material of the gear (because the torque is small) may be a light material such as resin, for example, so that the entire vehicle body is light.

Fig. 7 shows a specific application example of a force sensor mechanism when a popular manual wheelchair is turned into electric assistance (assist).

The handrail 7 to which the wheel-shaped reflecting plate 8 is attached is spring-connected to the wheel 5 to which the wheel-shaped transmitting plate 9 is attached.

Light rays from the light emitter 10 pass through the transmission plate 9, are reflected by the reflection plate 8, and are received by the light receiver 11.

When a force is applied to the handrail 7, the reflection plate 8 and the transmission plate 9 are displaced, and there is a difference between a bright time and a dark time.

By converting this difference into an electric signal and changing the motor driving force in proportion, an auxiliary force proportional to the applied force can be given. It is a so-called automatic assistance wheelchair.

Industrial applicability

As described above, according to the present invention, electric energy can be used simply and effectively, so that it can be applied to battery-mounted electric machines in general.

In particular, since a light and simple wheel drive mechanism is possible, a light and inexpensive truck or carrier can be realized. Replacement form (Rule 26)

Claims

Scope of Claim Charge / discharge device consisting of a switching device and a processing device both connected in series and in parallel with a plurality of batteries A driving machine equipped with a drive gear and guide rollers, and driven by a motor that swings the head High power of human power Electric wheelchair replacement sheet characterized by changing the motor driving force according to the time difference between the reflected light and the darkened light (Rule 26) Claims of the amendment [Feb. 2, 1998 (02.02.98) ) Accepted by the International Bureau: Claims 1-3 at the time of filing were amended. (1 page)]

1. (After correction) In a battery electric machine, a plurality of batteries connected in series, a switching element connected in parallel to a common line from each of the batteries, and a processing device, and an AC on the common line A charging / discharging device for directly charging a voltage or discharging a pulse train (or a step-like pulse train) voltage on the common line.

2. (After correction) In a battery-powered vehicle, a wheel with a DA protrusion cut in parallel with the wheel, a drive gear provided on the motor shaft, and a guide roller separately provided on the motor shaft Wheel drive

3. (After correction) In the battery-powered assist wheelchair, an arrow

An electric assist wheelchair, wherein a reflecting plate is provided, and an arrow-shaped ^ ¾ plate is provided at the center of a wheel connected to the handrail and a panel.

Amended paper (Article 19 of the Convention) Statements under Article 19 of the Convention

Claim 1 includes the expression of a common line and clarifies that the switching elements are connected in parallel from the common line.

A common line may be provided separately for the input AC voltage and for the output pulse, but they may be shared.

The cited example is Fig. 1. In this example, the common line (newly named BUS) is used for both input and output, and two sets of 24 V are operated simultaneously.

In the cited example, the input is the AC voltage itself, but the voltage after full-wave rectification is also included in the scope of claim 1.

Claim 2 is limited to a wheel drive device of an electric vehicle equipped with a battery.

In addition, wheels with uneven cuts parallel to the wheel surface (radially from the center) are driven by gears with guide rollers.

In this way, the body can be made thinner even with a normal motor (even if it is not thinner), and there is no gear noise and it can be driven reliably.

In addition, high speed and low torque drive reduce gears, so light weight, high efficiency and low cost can be expected.

Claim 3 is limited to an electric assist wheelchair equipped with a battery.

Furthermore, it was shown that the means for detecting human power can be realized (externally) using a conventional manual wheelchair.