A transformable wheel designed in this study is proposed to meet the increasingly complex travel requirements of people because it is urgent to provide a smooth and barrier-free travel scheme in complex and changeable urban land. The transformable wheel, with 10 pivoting-head parts, allows vehicles with the wheels to surmount low-height obstacles that deliberately complicates the terrain such as blind roads, small steps, bumps and door sills, and to achieve low-consumption travel. In this study, we demonstrate that the transformable wheels improve its performance by nearly 30% under the road conditions of low-height obstacles and is especially suitable for carts and suitcases passing through low-height obstacles such as blind lanes and low stairs.

The problem of the aging society has become more serious, and the use rate of the mobile auxiliary equipment such as wheelchair has increased. Moreover, the situation of the ground on which such wheelchairs run becomes complicated by the urbanization progress, and especially, for the rough terrain and the obstacle, the elderly and the their caregivers meet difficulties to pass through due to such as the distance and the external force. According to this situation, a new mobility device adapted to various running environments is required. This research has proposed a deformable wheel to overcome these issues. The deformation wheel was designed to be able to run in the rough plane such as a step, and it runs only by the rotation motion of the wheel, with the expansion mechanism with the variable diameter hub added, while retaining the performance of the circular wheel which can run on the high efficiency and high speed in the plane.