Control architecture for a lower limbs rehabilitation robot system

Abstract

This paper describes the control architecture for lower limbs rehabilitation robot system and its implementation. The system has exoskeleton structure with 10 DOF (degrees of freedom) and is pneumatically actuated. The control strategy has been specifically designed in order to ensure a proper position control guiding patient's legs along a fixed reference gait pattern. For this purposes Fuzzy controller with additional force compensator was developed. A numerical solution of the inverse kinematics problem based on video image analysis has been used. The controller was successively implemented and tested on embedded real-time PC104 system. Laboratory experiments without patient are carried out and the results are reported and discussed.