Design and control of a lower limb rehabilitation robot considering undesirable torques of the patient's limb.

Journal: Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Part H, Journal of engineering in medicine
Published Date:

Abstract

This research introduces a new exoskeleton-type rehabilitation robot, which can be used in lower limb rehabilitation therapy for post-stroke patients. A novel design of a typical knee and ankle rehabilitation robot is proposed. The kinematic and dynamic models of the knee and ankle rehabilitation robot are derived. Furthermore, a super-twisting nonsingular terminal sliding mode control is developed to achieve the desired training missions and its results are compared with those of an adaptive sliding mode control. To reduce undesired interaction torques between knee and ankle rehabilitation robot and patient, an admittance control algorithm is added to the controller to guarantee a safe therapy session. The admittance super-twisting nonsingular terminal sliding mode control structure is considered as the novelty of this article. Taking into account the dynamic uncertainties, external disturbances, and the interaction torques, the validity of the admittance super-twisting nonsingular terminal sliding mode control controller is approved by various numerical simulations over the admittance adaptive sliding mode control.

Authors

  • Karam Almaghout
    Advance Service Robots (ASR) Laboratory, Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Faculty of New Sciences and Technologies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
  • Bahram Tarvirdizadeh
    Advance Service Robots (ASR) Laboratory, Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Faculty of New Sciences and Technologies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
  • Khalil Alipour
    Advance Service Robots (ASR) Laboratory, Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Faculty of New Sciences and Technologies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
  • Alireza Hadi
    Advance Service Robots (ASR) Laboratory, Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Faculty of New Sciences and Technologies, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.