Systematic design customization of sport wheelchairs using the taguchi method

This paper describes a systematic approach developed for customisation of wheelchairs for court-based sports, such as wheelchair rugby. Novel predictive models and reference to prior experimental work has identified pertinent wheelchair design parameters, including horizontal and vertical seat position and wheel camber. A purpose-built adjustable wheelchair frame has been developed to experimentally assess the effects of these parameters on the performance of individual athletes. The paper proposes a novel approach to determining optimal design parameters for a specific athlete based on the Taguchi method. This approach is superior to traditional testing as it enables efficient characterisation of the effect of design variables on wheelchair performance, including error checking to quantify the effect of noise variables such as muscle fatigue.