An experimental study on changes of muscle fatigue among traveling by standing-type mobile vehicles and walking

Many robotics technologies are being developed. One of the technologies is utilized in a personal vehicle. A personal vehicle, which has high energy efficiency, has been expected as new personal mobility. It is well-known that a personal vehicle is higher energy efficiency, and requires less space than a normal vehicle. On the other hand, with respect to the fatigue, there are less enough experimental data using a personal vehicle, especially a standing-type personal vehicle. Thus, it will be necessary to evaluate the fatigue using standing-type personal vehicle. Two types of standing-type personal vehicles were used as personal vehicles in this study. The changes of muscle hardness on legs and subject's feeling were employed in order to measure the amount of fatigue. The amount of fatigue was measured before and after moving about 3 km distance in real world on using each vehicle. The experiments and questionnaires after doing experiments were done with 6 subjects. Experimental result shows that there is a difference between two kinds of standing-type personal vehicles. The amount of muscle fatigue by using one small vehicle changes larger than other two methods. It assumed that muscle fatigue can be affected by stability, power and space around legs from the results of experiments and questionnaires.