A Study on Low Cost Solar Powered Wheel Chair

for Disabled People of Bangladesh

Syed Nazmus Sakib , Syeda Puspita Mouri , Zannatul Ferdous , and M. Shamim Kaiser
Department of Electrical, Electronic & Communication Engineering
Military Institute of Science and Technology, Mirpur Cantonment, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Email: s.nazmus.sakib@ieee.org
Institute of Information Technology

Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Email: mskaiser@juniv.edu

AbstractThis paper presents a study on low cost solar
powered wheelchair for disabled people of Bangladesh. The main
components are: the wheelchair structure, the solar panels, the
DC motors, the controlling circuits, microcontroller and joystick.
The proposed model is very useful for the physically challenged
people of the rural areas. This proposed model is affordable to the
low income people of countries like Bangladesh. The wheelchair
is cost effective and user friendly. The proposed model is self-
driven and independent. For the proposed model the Life Cycle
Cost analysis is done and compared with the power wheelchair
that takes the grid power for charging and the proposed model
is proven to be lower in the cost. The solar powered wheelchair
will help the physically challenged people a great deal in their
day to day movements. The proposed model will be very effective
in the rural areas as well as in the urban areas.
Index Termssolar power; disability; wheelchair; spinal
cord;low cost;mobility;assistive device.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Bangladesh is considered as a developing country. It has
a large population of 158,014,687[1]. This densely popu-
lated country has a population density of 964 per square
kilometer[2]. About 80% of the total population lives in the
villages and about 60% people are engaged in agriculture[3].
The economic growth of the country is not enough to support
all the people with the facilities they demand. Still this country
is trying hard to fulfill the basic needs of the large population.
The per capita Gross National Income (GNP) of the country
is 1,190 USD[4]. The data mentioned above gives an idea
about the lifestyle of the people of the country. Most of the
people belong to the middle class or lower middle class of
the society. To them disability is considered as a curse. It
is regarded as an embarrassment to the family the disabled
people belongs to. This negligence of the society makes a bar
between the persons with disabilities from the others in the
society on normal economic, social and political activities in
their families, communities, essential services and education.
The number of persons with disabilities is so high that it
requires special attention. In Bangladesh about 10% of the to-
tal population is disabled. World Health Organization (WHO)
estimated the prevalence of the disable person at 10.5% which
is more common in the rural areas of the country[5]. The total
rate of the physically disabled population is 27.5%. In children
below 18 years, the prevalence of disability is estimated at
6% and for the age group above 18 years it is 14%. It can
be regarded as 3.4 million children with disabilities and 10.2
million adults with disabilities[6]. And about 4.6% people get
disability due to spinal cord injury. In Bangladesh, the total age
group for spinal cord injury is ranged between 10-70 years.
The majority of the patients age is between 20-30 years, 19%
between 10-20 years, between 20-30 years it is 42%, 20%
between 30-40 years, between 40-50 year it is 15% and 4%
between 50-60 years[7].
There are a lot of difficulties and hassles involved with the
mobility of the physically challenged people in the society. It
has been seen over the times that the physically challenged
people are basically using some assistive devices such as
crutches, artificial limbs or legs etc. and manual wheel chairs
or even three-wheelers for their day-to-day movements. But
these wheel chairs or three-wheelers are crude or of inefficient
in design; not very much suitable for outdoor use or common
terrain in the country like Bangladesh. Undoubtedly these
manual wheel chairs or the three-wheelers are the blessings
for crippled people but in the question of humanity, it is just
to add insult to injury. Because commonly found manual wheel
chairs or three-wheelers have a basic problem that the patient
must use physical force to turn the wheels to move towards
his or her desired direction. This action is physically stressful.
It can result in muscle and joint pain and degradation, torn
rotor cuffs, repetitive stress injury and carpal tunnel syndrome;
which causes secondary injury or further disability. A study on
wheelchair users shows that about 41.25% patients have been
found loss of range of motion, 29.4% patients are suffering
from shoulder pain, wrist pain caused to 23.53% patients,
25.5% patients have back pain, 29.4% patients feel discomfort
during the time of propelling the wheelchair[5].
Although mobility or assistive device users are relatively
small minority of the total population with disabilities, their
importance is greater than the numbers. Among all the mobil-
ity or assistive devices, wheelchairs have become the visible
symbols of disability. It has become a sign on the context of
disability. Whenever anyone thinks about a disabled person
the first thing that comes to mind is a person on a wheelchair.
Proper understanding of the magnitude and characteristics of
the people using these assistive technologies is therefore of
great importance. For these devices to be used effectively in
the day to day movements of the physically challenged people,
the environments in which they are used must be accessible.
However, the importance of developing these assistive de-
vice technologies reaches to the utmost. The use of the con-
ventional energy sources and the rapid development process
of the present world definitely have some bad impacts on
the environment and its surroundings. It causes depleting
limited energy resource. It may damage the ecosystem and
leads to environment pollution and global warming. As a
result, environment friendly design of an assistive device
for the physically challenged people is the crying need of
the time and it is very much necessary to develop user
friendly equipment or mode of transport for better living and
for better future. Wonderful inventions are made because of
the enormous capacity to adopt new means in the difficult
situations. The new inventions are particularly beneficial to
the people with mobility problems. Power wheelchairs have
become a revolution in the assistive device technologies. Our
proposed model is one kind of power wheelchair. But our
proposed model is a solar powered wheelchair which is of low
cost and effective for the rural people of developing countries
like Bangladesh.
In this paper, section II depicts the perspective of solar
wheelchair, section III introduces solar energy and its per-
spective, section IV describes the proposed model, section V
gives the features of the proposed model, section VI shows the
system cost assumptions, section VII gives the LCC analysis
and finally the work is concluded in section VIII.
II. P ERSPECTIVE OF S OLAR W HEELCHAIR
In the early times, mobility scooters were first introduced.
It changed the way of thinking about a wheelchair. Electric
wheelchairs have gained popularity nowadays, more than half
a century later of mobility scooters. These wheelchairs have
been playing a vital role in helping the disable people. These
electric wheelchairs are not only helping the permanently
disable people to move according to own desire but also is used
during the physical therapy of injured people who could not
walk temporarily. One of the many advantages of the electric
wheelchairs is that it can be recycled as long as the motors are
well maintained. Many people purchase used electric powered
wheelchairs for their cheaper price and a pretty long lifespan.
Taking the overall prevailing situation into account, the
development of a solar powered wheelchair for the physically
challenged people is a vital effort where solar energy and its
advantages are considered. Another challenge was to make
the wheelchair of low cost otherwise it will not be affordable
for the rural people of the countries like Bangladesh. A solar
powered wheelchair could be a stand-alone system. It is a
self-operated wheelchair and independent in nature. Using the
unending solar energy from the sun, this chair will have no
impact on the national electricity production as Bangladesh
has shortage in its electricity production. It is taking power
for running the motors by solar energy from the two solar
panels mounted at the top, exposed to sunlight. It can be used
in the places where there is no electricity.
As mentioned earlier, the first challenge of making this
wheelchair was its cost. It has to be made of low cost to
make it affordable for all. Secondly the challenge was to make
it simple and user friendly. It is made so simple that if any
problem occurs any technician can fix the problems. The solar
panels are available and the cost of these panels is decreasing
day by day with the increasing efficiency. The controlling is
made user friendly so that the patients could not feel any stress
and pressure during the movements.
III. S OLAR E NERGY AND ITS P ERSPECTIVE
In the present world, the demand for energy is increasing
day by day. Sooner or later it will be much higher than
the present condition. So the world is now heading towards
renewable energy leaving behind fossil fuels energy for their
harmful effects on environment. The energy that can be
regenerated is known as renewable energy being generated
from wind, sunlight, geothermal heat, tides, rain etc. Solar
power, wind power, biomass power, hydroelectricity are some
of the renewable energy. Due to the high availability of the
sunlight many countries of the world are accepting solar
energy and thus it is becoming one of the most commonly
used renewable energy. Solar energy is produced by converting
sunlight into electrical energy using solar panels. This energy
system is found to be environment friendly and less costly.
Many countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and many
others are now trying to solve their electricity problem by
using solar energy. This energy is being rapidly implemented
by most of the developed countries. Leading countries of the
world according to the installed solar energy system: Germany:
35.5 GW, China: 18.3 GW, Italy: 17.6 GW, Japan: 13.6 GW,
United States: 12 GW[8].
Bangladesh is rich enough in natural gases but erection of
these gases is very costly and it needs high technology. Being
a highly populated country Bangladesh severely faces elec-
tricity crisis. Load shedding is increasing with the number of
increasing population. So Bangladesh is in need of more power
generation and this crisis of electricity can be solved using the
solar energy. The geographical position of Bangladesh (20.30
and 26.38 degree N latitude and 88.04 and 92.44 degree E) is
preferable for assigning solar power system. Power Generation
capacity of Bangladesh is 10,648 MW till September 2014,
user accessibility is 68%[9]. Maximum demand of power in
Bangladesh is 7418 MW[10]. Government has planned to
achieve 16000 MW national power generation capacity and
800 MW from renewable sources by 2015[11]. According to
NASA Surface meteorology and Solar Energy RET Screen
Data, Bangladesh has got a great future in the field of solar
energy generation. The amount of clear index that is needed for
good solar radiation is present in our country according to the
report. So solar energy can be very helpful for a country like
Bangladesh where the shortage of energy is high. Thats why
the study on solar energy is gaining lots of interest among the
 Fig. 1. Bar plot of daily solar radiation data

TABLE I
D IRECTION C ONTROL OF THE S OLAR P OWERED W HEELCHAIR

Joystick Position DC Motor Left DC Motor Right

Left Move Backward Move Forward
Right Move Forward Move Backward
Front Move Forward Move Forward
Back Move Backward Move Backward

researchers in the country. Figure 1 unfolds the data of daily

solar radiation of Dhaka city[12].
IV. P ROPOSED S OLAR W HEELCHAIR M ODEL Fig. 2. Fuctional block diagram of solar powered wheelchair

Fig 2 shows the functional block diagram of the solar wheel

chair .This diagram represents how the solar wheelchair works.
The battery is charged by solar power. Batter charge controller
or charge regulator saves the battery from overcharging. The
direction controller is also connected with the battery bank
the direction controlling process is shown in table 1.When the
joystick is in left direction the DC motor R moves forward and
DC motor L has no movement to rotate in left direction. When
the joystick is driven forward both the motors move forward to
give a speed in forward direction. When the joystick is in right
direction the DC motor L moves forward and DC motor R has
no movement to rotate in right direction. When the joystick is
driven backward both the motors move backward to drive it
in backward direction. Fig. 3. Block diagram of the controlling circuit

V. F EATURES OF THE P ROPOSED M ODEL

The proposed solar wheelchair model is shown in the
figure 4. The base is the lower portion of the wheelchair
that contains the motors, batteries, drive wheels, casters and
electronics to which a seating system is attached. In the base
portion, the necessary equipment are settled. Microcontroller
and electronic circuit are for controlling the wheel chair. The
controlling circuit is kept in a box attached at the side of the
chair.
The controlling system is shown in fig 3.The joystick is
connected with the microcontroller. The microcontroller is
programmed in such a way that it drives the motor driver IC
according to the input command of the joystick. The motor
driver IC drives the motor. The two motors gets conduction
in such a way that the wheel chair can move in front, right,
left and back direction The proposed solar power wheelchair
is appropriate for those who are unable to propel a manual
wheelchair. It also reduces the strain on shoulders and arms
so one can continue to perform transfers safely. Our proposed
solar power wheelchair facilitates user in different way. The
features are:
 TABLE II
D ESIGN PARAMETER FOR W HEELCHAIR S TRUCTURE

Parameter Value
User weight max. 140kg
Dimension 100 cm54 cm
Seat height, min. 35-60 cm
Back-rest recline max. 15o
Tilt-in-space 5o - 30o
Ground clearance 6 cm
Slope max. 6o
Climbs obstacles of max. 6 cm

TABLE III
E STIMATED COST OF THE PROPOSED WHEEL CHAIR

Parts Cost(Taka)
Wheel Chair 5,000
Solar panel 10,000
DC motor & gear 3,000
Batteries 7,000
Other Components 4,000
Total 29,000

VI. S YSTEM C OST A SSUMPTION

Fig. 4. Proposed solar wheelchair model
Implementation of the controlling circuit and fixed it in
a specially designed wheelchair.
Solar panels in this solar wheel chair are constructed with
lightweight plexi glass where the standard glass sheeting
is nowadays used in solar panel construction. The ad-
vantage of light weight plexi glass is it is approximately
18 times strong than normal glass. As it is a light weight
glass it is comparatively easy to move with it in the wheel
chair.
Cost efficiency.
It has speed close to normal peoples walking speed. So
no chance of accidents to cause.
There will be no strain in moving the joystick.
There is a button for tilting the seat as required. So a long
sitting on the chair will not affect the patients backbone.
The wheelchair has a great balance. The design is made
keeping the balance.
In the cost analysis, there are some costs that need to
be assumed. The systems associated with the proposed solar
powered wheelchair model have some definite costs that need
to be assumed to get a full cost analysis. The assumptions
shown in the following have been made on the basis of present
market prices to determine the life cycle cost (LCC) of the
proposed solar powered wheelchair:
The operation and maintenance cost is considered 10%
and for solar system it is 5% of the total capital cost[13].
The installation cost is considered on the basis of an
average labor cost of Bangladeshi taka (Tk) 250/day.
Unit cost of the solar panel is Tk 60 (found in local
market survey).
The LCC nonrecurring General Escalation (GE) of 3%
(typically the value is 38%), discount rate, denoted by,
of 7% (typically the annual value is 7 15%), LCC
nonrecurring cost factor of 0.565 are considered[14].
Considering that the inflation rate, denoted by , of
conventional electricity is 5%.
The interest rate, denoted by i, is 3%[14].
The period of analysis, denoted by n, is 20 years which
is equal to the assumed physical and economic of the PV
system[14].
VII. L IFE C YCLE C OST A NALYSIS
After the local market survey, it has been found that the
cost of the proposed solar powered wheelchair will be in the
range of the lower middle class people of the country. The
breakdown of the price is given in Table III.
For the LCC analysis, we consider the following two
different cases:
Case A: Battery operated wheelchair taking charge from
the national grid.
 TABLE IV [6] Bilharziasis Laboratory for the World Bank, The Peoples Republic of
LCC ANALYSIS FOR DIFFERENT CASES Bangladesh
[7] Hoque, M.F., Grangeon, C., Reed, K., 1999. Spinal cord lesions in
Cost Item Case B Case B Bangladesh: an epidemiological study 1994 1995, (Centre for the
Wheel Chair 6000 5000 Rehabilitation of the Paralyzed, Bangladesh), Spinal Cord, 37, 858-861,
Structure 257-266.
3W PV array 10000 [8] Top 10 countries using solar power, http://pureenergies.com/us/blog/top-
Solar charge con- 600 10-countries-using-solar-power/
troller [9] Power cell, ministry of power, energy & mineral resources, http :
Battery Bank 12000 7000 //www.powercell.gov.bd/index.php?pagei d = 267
Installation Cost 500 [10] Bangladesh power development board (BPDB), february, 2015 http :
DC Motor 5000 3000 //www.bpdb.gov.bd/bpdb/index.php?option = comc ontent
LCCC 23000 26100 &view = article&id = 5&Itemid = 6.
O & M Cost in 120000 70000 [11] Power division, Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral
20 Years Resources Government of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh,
LCCO&M 143000 96100 http://www.powerdivision.gov.bd/user/brec1/50/1
LCCN C 80795 54298 [12] Farhana Afrin, Twisha Titirsha, Syeda Sanjidah, A. R. M. Siddique,Asif
Cost of Electric- 220000 Rabbani,Installing Dual Axis Solar Tracker on Rooftop to Meet the Soar-
ity ing Demand of Energy for Developing Countries, Impact of Engineering
on Global Sustainability, INDICON-2013, IIT Bombay, Mumbai,
Total 20 years 443705 150398
India, 13-15 December, 2013.
LCC
[13] Jain. G. C, Development and manufacture of photovoltaic systemin
Total Energy 21325 26280
developing countries, National Physical Lab RIT Digital Media Library,
(KWh)
March 1981
LCC KWh 20.81 5.72
[14] M. S. Kaiser, A. Anwar, S. K. Adyita, and R. K. Mazumder,Financial
(tk/Kwh)
Analysis of a Roof-top grid-connected PV system in Dhaka,, Journal of
Science, University of Dhaka, Vol. 54(2), pp:157-162, July 2006, ISSN:
1022-2502.

Case B: Proposed solar powered wheelchair.

Table IV presents the estimated costs for different cases of
power wheelchair in (Tk) [1 USD=78 Tk]. Where LCCC
is the Life cycle capital cost, LCCN C is the Life cycle
non-recurring cost and it includes battery replacement cost,
LCCO&M is the Life cycle operation and maintenance cost.
VIII. C ONCLUSION
The proposed solar wheelchair is economically feasible and
cost efficient. It also saves power of national grid as it uses
solar energy. It can be prescribed to those who are unable
to use manual wheelchair such as tetraplegia due to spinal
cord injury , motor neuron diseases etc . By adding a solar-
powered source of electricity to a motorized wheelchair, the
range of the wheelchair as the independence of its user can be
extended. The main advantage of this proposed model is it is
environment friendly and easy for the physically challenged
people.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This project work was done successfully with the help of
Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP), Savar,
Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Authors would like to thank all the
anonymous reviewers who have evaluated this project.
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[1] Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), www.bbs.gov.bd/home.aspx.
[2] 2011 Bangladesh Population & Housing Census
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[3] Jahan, N., 2008. Effect of age on paraplegic spinal cord injury patients
rehabilitation at CRP, Honors thesis, Dhaka University.
[4] Per capita GDP, GNI and NNI at Current Prices,2009-10 to 2013-14
http : //www.bbs.gov.bd/W ebT estApplication/userf iles
/Image/GDP/GDP2 013 14.pdf
[5] Md. Delowar Hossain, Prevalence of common musculosleletal disorders
among paraplegic wheelchair users, february, 2012.