A study of vibration characteristics on a luxury wheelchair and a new prototype wheelchair

The transmission of wheelchair vibrations to the body will influence comfort, performance and the long-term health of the user. Improved knowledge of vibration transmissibility and its variability enhances our understanding of various human responses to vibration. In this study, an outdoor experiment and an experiment with vibration simulation using two wheelchairs (high-quality models of a new prototype wheelchair taken from two different stages of the iterative production procedure) were performed. The study confirms that the human body is very sensitive to the frequency range of 0.5–10 Hz, as found in the literature. Both wheelchairs equipped with passive suspension system did not perform adequately in this frequency range and even amplified the input signal at the resonance frequency (3–4.5 Hz). As the risk of physical damage is not likely to improve with these wheelchair suspension systems, the future depends on new designs with higher low-frequency comfort and affordable additional costs.