Design and Control of a Lower Limb Exoskeleton for Robot-Assisted Gait Training

Robot-assisted rehabilitation of gait still faces many challenges, one of which is improving physical human-robot interaction. The use of pleated pneumatic artificial muscles to power a step rehabilitation robot has the potential to meet this challenge. This paper reports on the development of a gai...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Pieter Beyl, Michaël Van Damme, Ronald Van Ham, Bram Vanderborght, Dirk Lefeber
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2009-01-01
Series:Applied Bionics and Biomechanics
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/11762320902784393
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Summary:Robot-assisted rehabilitation of gait still faces many challenges, one of which is improving physical human-robot interaction. The use of pleated pneumatic artificial muscles to power a step rehabilitation robot has the potential to meet this challenge. This paper reports on the development of a gait rehabilitation exoskeleton with a knee joint powered by pleated pneumatic artificial muscles. It is intended as a platform for the evaluation of design and control concepts in view of improved physical human-robot interaction. The design was focused on the optimal dimensioning of the actuator configuration. Safety being the most important prerequisite, a proxy-based sliding mode controller (PSMC) was implemented as it combines accurate tracking during normal operation with a smooth, slow and safe recovery from large position errors. Treadmill walking experiments of a healthy subject wearing the powered exoskeleton show the potential of PSMC as a safe robot-in-charge control strategy for robot-assisted gait training.
ISSN:1176-2322
1754-2103