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The Elevating Wheelchair

THE PROBLEM:  While confined to a wheelchair, many objects are out of reach or unreadable. How can a wheelchair occupant lift themselves up to access anything out of their vertical reach or see anything that only a person standing can see? Two students of a technology course made this problem the focus of their final year project.

THE SOLUTION: The simple answer is to lift the wheelchair and/or the occupant. The detailed answer is in a 130 page formal engineering report with 13 AutoCAD drawings to support the idea. The above drawings give a good representation of the design. The base was an Everest & Jennings 'Traveller' wheelchair, but the idea could be adapted to almost any style. The lifting mechanism is a ball screw shaft housed in two telescoping square tubes (one over the other). The shaft rotates
through the use of flexible cables, right angle gear boxes to a pan 12V motor . There is a safety device on each shaft (L & R sides of the seat) too complicated to get into here, but will do the job securly. The height was based on the intermationally recognized height of 1600 mm of public signs. The portability was retained as
the drive mechanism was designed to be removed, hence the chair could be folded. This design could be adapted to powered chairs also.

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