A New Approach for Handling Element Accessibility Problems Faced by Persons with a Wheelchair

The built environment accessibility evaluation is required if the person physical capacities no longer correspond to the habitat requirements, which generally occur after an accident. For the person with disabilities, the inner accessibility of habitat is a highly important factor that allows him to live and work independently. This paper presents a new approach to determine the accessibility of handling elements like doors, windows, etc. inside the habitat for the wheelchair user. Thus, allowing housing professionals to assess the needed changes in terms of accessibility. The idea is to involve a new computer approach to evaluating the performance of these elements against wheelchair user capacity. The presented approach simulated wheelchair user behavior when he/ she is operating a handling element in order to determine the dimensions/positions of wheelchair clearance space and handle grip optimal heights while considering wheelchair arrival direction and respecting joint limits constraints of person upper body and wheelchair nonholonomy constraints.