CapaCITIES

Manual wheelchair locomotion (FRM) subjects the upper limbs of manual wheelchair users (U-FRM) to significant stress, which varies depending on the environment. To help manual wheelchair users choose paths that preserve their upper limbs, we need to assign a cost reflecting the physical demand of successive situations along the possible paths. In the current state of knowledge and accessibility standards, an obstacle has no graduation and can only be marked as passable or not, which can reflect neither the heterogeneity of situations, nor the link between their accessibility and the physical and technical capabilities of U-FRM. To go beyond these limitations, this project aims to define the biomechanical costs attributable to environmental situations, which could be implemented in future optimal path selection algorithms. This will make it possible to provide U-FRMs with individualized paths that take account of their individual capabilities. To this end, a musculoskeletal model will be developed to quantify various biomechanical quantities that will serve as input data for the definition of biomechanical costs. These costs will be calculated for different situations, reproduced in a realistic FRM locomotion simulator developed as part of this project.

Such a project will provide original and useful data for accessibility assessment, urban development service planning and adaptation assistance. It will also serve as a basis for further work on U-FRM evaluation and path characterization to provide customized paths at best cost.