In this study, a new concept of a wheelchair-towing robot for the facile electrification of manual wheelchairs is introduced. The development of this concept includes the design of towing robot hardware and an autonomous driving algorithm to ensure the safe transportation of patients to their intended destinations inside the hospital. We developed a novel docking mechanism to facilitate easy docking and separation between the towing robot and the manual wheelchair, which is connected to the front caster wheel of the manual wheelchair. The towing robot has a mecanum wheel drive, enabling the robot to move with a high degree of freedom in the standalone driving mode while adhering to kinematic constraints in the docking mode. Our novel towing robot features a camera sensor that can observe the ground ahead which allows the robot to autonomously follow color-coded wayfinding lanes installed in hospital corridors. This study introduces dedicated image processing techniques for capturing the lanes and control algorithms for effectively tracing a path to achieve autonomous path following. The autonomous towing performance of our proposed platform was validated by a real-world experiment in which a hospital environment with colored lanes was created.

翻译：本研究提出了一种新型轮椅牵引机器人概念，旨在实现手动轮椅的便捷电气化改造。该概念的开发包括牵引机器人硬件设计及自主驾驶算法，以确保将患者安全运送至医院内的预定目的地。我们开发了一种新型对接机构，便于牵引机器人与手动轮椅（连接至手动轮椅前部脚轮）的便捷对接与分离。该牵引机器人采用麦克纳姆轮驱动，在独立驾驶模式下可实现高自由度运动，同时在对接模式下受运动学约束。本机器人创新性地配备了可观测前方地面的摄像头传感器，能够自主跟随医院走廊内铺设的彩色编码导向车道。本研究提出了专用的车道捕捉图像处理技术及有效路径追踪控制算法，以实现自主路径跟踪。通过在搭建的医院环境（设有彩色车道）中开展真实场景实验，验证了所提平台的自主牵引性能。