• Journal of rehabilitation welfare engineering & assistive technology
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.251-258
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• 2014

A wheelchair is a typical mobility aid for the physically disabled or the old and the weak, and is the most commonly used rehabilitation aid. In general, most of users of manual wheelchair have difficulty though vocational rehabilitation and independent living is possible. The reason is that long-distance movement is always accompanied with wheelchair transfer problem because a wheelchair is used as direct means of transport. Hence, the wheelchair transfer problem should be first solved in order that a wheelchair user can independently live. Therefore, this study examined and analyzed the domestic and overseas launched products and patented technologies of wheelchair transfer system for vehicle, and proposed a wheelchair transfer mechanism of a new system for vehicle. This study proposed a wheelchair transfer mechanism for vehicle in order to remove the disadvantage of wheelchair transfer system for vehicle to support the conventional wheelchair user's movement, and in order to conform with the structure of domestic welfare vehicle for the disabled. Because a difference between storage space installed in the roof of vehicle and storage space for leisure, which is generally utilized, gets to disappear by applying this proposed mechanism, popularity among users can be increased. And storage space that has become smaller like this will be capable of decreasing the disadvantage of air resistance in traveling. Besides, because of getting to conform with the structure of welfare vehicle, restrictions on the application range will disappear from small sedan to SUV. Therefore, users can have more choices.