Remote diagnosis and control of wheelchair electrical drive systems

A new Diagnostic and Protective System (DPS) suitable for wheelchair electrical drive applications has been prepared. Such a system is able to perform both monitoring and long-distance transmission of key signals that are used as pre-fault and fault indicators. The system, moreover, may detect several anomalous working conditions by means of reliable diagnosis procedures and carries out actions to protect the electrical drive and to drive the disabled people in safe conditions. In particular the design, the realization and the performance analysis of the new dedicated diagnostic system, which exploits a programmable logic controller (PLC) as DRS hardware, are described and discussed. The ef…