A fast kinematic-based control method for lower-limb power augmentation exoskeleton

Abstract

Exoskeletons are robotic devices which are used in power augmentation and rehabilitation robotics. The exoskeleton control system is one of the most challenging issues in human-robot interaction systems. Although the rehabilitation robotic control methods are well studied, little research has been conducted on power augmenting control methods. This paper presents a novel idea in control system of exoskeletons for load carrying and power augmentation. Here, the desired linear velocity of the exoskeleton in interaction points are taken to be proportional to interaction force at the corresponding location. The introduced control method is merely based on kinematic model and thus easy to implement practically. The result of simulation on a seven segmented dynamic model of Human-Exoskeleton shows that the interaction forces tend to zero and the position tracking error of exoskeleton is less than 2° degree.