Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Mechatronics: Haoyong Yu, Sunan Huang, Gong Chen, Nitish Thakor
Mechatronics: Haoyong Yu, Sunan Huang, Gong Chen, Nitish Thakor
Mechatronics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/mechatronics
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: Rehabilitation robots have direct physical interaction with human body. Ideally, actuators for rehabilita-
Received 1 October 2012 tion robots should be compliant, force controllable, and back drivable due to safety and control consid-
Accepted 23 August 2013 erations. Series Elastic Actuators (SEA) offers many advantages for these applications and various designs
Available online xxxx
have been developed. However, current SEA designs face a common performance limitation due to the
compromise on the spring stiffness selection. This paper presents a novel compact compliant force con-
Keywords: trol actuator design for portable rehabilitation robots to overcome the performance limitations of current
Compliant actuator
SEAs. Our design consists of a servomotor, a ball screw, a torsional spring between the motor and the ball
Optimal control
Sliding mode
screw, and a set of translational springs between the ball screw nut and the external load. The soft trans-
Smooth switching control lational springs are used to handle the low force operation, while the torsional spring with high effective
stiffness is used to deal with the large force operation. It is a challenging task to design the controller for
such a novel design as the control system needs to handle both the force ranges. In this paper, we develop
the force control strategy for this actuator. First, two dynamical models of the actuator are established
based on different force ranges. Second, we propose an optimal control with friction compensation
and disturbance rejection which is enhanced by a feedforward control for the low force range. The pro-
posed optimal control with feedforward term is also extended to the high force range. Third, a switching
control strategy is proposed to handle a transition between low force and high force control. The math-
ematical proof is given to ensure the stability of the closed-loop system under the proposed switching
control. Finally, the proposed method is validated with experimental results on a prototype of the actu-
ator system and is also veried with an ankle robot in walking experiments.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
0957-4158/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mechatronics.2013.08.004
Please cite this article in press as: Yu H et al. Control design of a novel compliant actuator for rehabilitation robots. Mechatronics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.mechatronics.2013.08.004
2 H. Yu et al. / Mechatronics xxx (2013) xxxxxx
performance, they still face a common fundamental limitation, has shown promise in providing patients with intensive therapy
which is the xed spring constant of the elastic element as dis- leading to functional gains. This involves the use of a robot exoskel-
cussed by Pratt et al. in [9,15]. The performance of the SEAs largely eton device or end-effector device to help the patient retrain motor
depends on spring constant [15]. Soft spring produces high delity coordination by performing gait movement. Here, we are develop-
of force control, low output impedance, and reduces stiction, but ing a portable wearable knee ankle robot for gait rehabilitation [17]
also limits the force range and the force control bandwidth at high based on the novel actuator design presented in this paper.
force range. On the other hand, stiff spring increases large force Fig. 1 shows the concept design of the robot. The modular sys-
bandwidth, but reduces force delity. In order to achieve the de- tem consists of an ankle foot module and a knee module. Each
sired output force/torque, most current SEAs are designed with module is driven with the same compact compliant force control-
very stiff springs, leading to compromised force control perfor- lable actuator as shown in Fig. 1. Based on the human lower limb
mance, low intrinsic compliance and back-drivability, and bulky biomechanics, it is known that the range of movement of the lower
and heavy systems. The novel design presented in this paper aims limb joints is within a known range during normal walking. We
to overcome the above limitations of the conventional SEAs while can make use of this property and use the simple rockerslider
improve the performance. This design concept was rst proposed mechanism to achieve a compact design that is most suitable for
in [16,17] and supported with simulation results and simple the exoskeleton. The core component in this exoskeleton is the
experiments. compliant actuator as shown in Fig. 2.
Apart from the mechanical development of SEAs, the control de- Our novel actuator design consists of a servomotor with a rotary
sign of SEAs is also gaining attention in recent years. Many control- encoder, one torsional spring assembly with another rotary enco-
lers have been presented for SEA and their performance have also der, a pair of spur gear with appropriate gear ratio to transmit
been analyzed. The following literature will give a brief insight in the motion to the ball screw which converts the rotary motion of
this area. In [10,11,15,18], pure PID control is used to produce a de- the shaft to linear motion of the nut, a set of linear springs attached
sired output force. In [9], PD plus feedforward control is used to to the ball screw nut to transmit the force to a carriage which has a
improve the dynamical performance for a class of SEAs. In force output pin to transmit the force to the load (prospective ro-
[13,1921], a type of cascaded control is presented to ensure sta- bot link), and a linear position sensor installed in the carriage to
bility in human interacting devices where a PI torque control is measure the displacement of the linear spring. The two rotary
used in the outer loop, while a PI velocity control is used in the in- encoders measure the angular deection of the torsional spring.
ner loop. In [6], a modied PID with feedforward term and human In this design, the stiffness of the linear spring is chosen to pro-
joint compensator is designed to generate desired force and low vide the average targeted assistive torque, which is usually about
impedance. In [14], based on the model of a SEA, the authors fur- one third of the peak torque. Therefore the linear spring is soft,
ther improve the human joint compensator used in [6] by adding small and light-weight. A very small torsional spring is used to
a low pass lter. A disturbance observer is also designed to com- achieve a very big effective spring constant at the output end be-
pensate the modeling error. In [22], the authors use a feedback plus cause it is located in the high speed range. As we can see in the
feedforward force control which is enhanced by a disturbance ob- next section, the effective spring constant at the output is more
server to compensate for plant variations, where feedback and than one hundred times that of the linear spring. Due to the differ-
feedforward controls are optimally designed. However, all these ence in spring constant, when the actuator is working in the low
current controllers are designed based on the actuators with xed force range, the force control is based on the linear spring and
stiffness spring, either linear spring or torsional spring. For an actu- the torsional spring behaves like a rigid link. However, when the
ator working with both types of springs in different force ranges, actuator is working in the high force range, the soft linear is fully
existing results are not available. compressed and the force control is based on the torsional spring.
In this paper, we present a novel compliant actuator system and Therefore, we can achieve a much smaller physical size of the over-
its force control design. Unlike existing SEAs, our system uses two all actuator compared to existing SEA designs and make it ideal for
types of springs (torsional and translational) at different force wearable exoskeleton application.
ranges. In order for this SEA to work well, there are challenges to Fig. 3 shows actuator prototype built based on this design for an
be addressed in the control system. An adequate control strategy exoskeleton system for lower limb rehabilitation for stroke
should be designed to deal with system dynamics and make a tran- patients. The actuator is designed to be able to provide up to
sition between high force and low force. The goal of the paper is to
address these issues. First, two dynamical models are established
with respect to low force range and high force range. Second, an
optimal control is designed for low force range. Since there is a fric-
tional behavior at the low force, we design a compensator in our
controller to deal with the friction. As sliding mode control has
been used as general tools for handling unknown nonlinear uncer-
tainties [23], we incorporate it into our controller to deal with the
unknown disturbance. The proposed optimal control plus feedfor-
ward term is also extended to high force range. Third, a switching
control is proposed to make a smooth transition between low force
and high force. The mathematical analysis is given to prove the sta-
bility of the closed-loop system. Finally, experimental results are
provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Gait disorders are common for patients post stroke and in most
cases cannot be treated medically or surgically. Therefore, treat-
ment often relies on rehabilitation service. Rehabilitation robotics Fig. 1. Prototype of the knee ankle robot.
Please cite this article in press as: Yu H et al. Control design of a novel compliant actuator for rehabilitation robots. Mechatronics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.mechatronics.2013.08.004
H. Yu et al. / Mechatronics xxx (2013) xxxxxx 3
where the output load is not xed, one linear potentiometer which
is placed in linear spring as shown in Fig. 2, is used to check the
linear spring deection.
The actuator is driven with a brushless dc motor. Three hall
effect sensors built in the dc motor are connected to the driver
and provide commutation information which are used to identify
the position of the rotor. The commutators and current control
maintain the optimum torque angle.
The controller is the main part of the control system. In our
system, a NI CompactRIO 9074 embedded control and data acqui-
sition system and a personal computer (PC) are used to implement
two force range control laws.
Fig. 2. A novel series elastic actuator.
3.2. Modeling of compliant actuator system
F k Dx 1
Please cite this article in press as: Yu H et al. Control design of a novel compliant actuator for rehabilitation robots. Mechatronics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.mechatronics.2013.08.004
4 H. Yu et al. / Mechatronics xxx (2013) xxxxxx
Table 1
Parameters of the actuator prototype.
Values of the hardware parameters Values of the hardware parameters for equivalent
for rotational motion translational motion
J1 = 5.517 106 kg m2 m1 = J1(2p/p)2 = 54.4 kg
J2 = 7.406 106 kg m2 m2 = J2(2p/p)2 = 73 kg
Torsional spring kt = 0.29 Nm/rad k1 = kt(2p/p)2 = 2.86 106 N/m
Linear spring k2 = 24 103 N/m k2 = 24 103 N/m
Pitch of the ball screw (p) = 2 103 m p = 2 103 m
Rotary encoder resolution = 1024/rev Force resolution 5.65 N
Linear potentiometer 25 mm Force resolution 0.0092 N
Total weight of actuator 0.84 Kg
Thus, a complete model for high force case is given by where Q1 is a symmetric positive-denite matrix, and q1is a posi-
tive constant. The state feedback controller for the criteria (17) is
ck1 k1 b1 bm _
F1 u F1 F1 10 T
m1 m1 m1 u q1
1 B1 P 1 et; 18
Please cite this article in press as: Yu H et al. Control design of a novel compliant actuator for rehabilitation robots. Mechatronics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.mechatronics.2013.08.004
H. Yu et al. / Mechatronics xxx (2013) xxxxxx 5
" #
1
p11
1
p12 " # " #
where P 1 1 1 > 0 is the unique positive denite solution 0 1 0
p21 p22 A2 ; B2 27
to the following equation
mk11 b1mb1 m ck1
m1
AT1 P1 P1 A1 q1 T The LQR theory is used to design the feedback control. The lin-
1 P 1 B1 B1 P 1 Q 1 0 19
ear model in the above system is
1 1
with Q 1 diagfq1 ; q2 g.
e_ A2 e B2 u 28
Note that the uncertainties such as nonlinear friction and dis-
turbance are not considered in the above controller design. Next, The performance index for the LQR theory is given by
the design of the sliding mode for the uncertain part of the system Z 1
(11) will be discussed. Although the term Df x_ 1 is nonlinear, it can J eT Q 2 e q2 u2 ; 29
be estimated by using an off-line experiment. Thus, a relay mode is 0
used to compensate the friction where Q2 is a symmetric positive-denite matrix, and q2is a posi-
ur l1 sgnx_ 1 20 tive constant. The feedback control is given below.
T
where l1 should be estimated before the control design. For the u q1
2 B2 P 2 et; 30
term d1, it is uncertain but it is assumed to be bounded by a value, " #
2 2
p11 p12
jd1 j 6 r1 21 where P 2 2 2 > 0 is the positive denite solution to the
p21 p22
Thus, a sliding mode control is used to reject the disturbance following equation
T
us c1 sgne P1 B1 22 AT2 P2 P2 A2 q1 T
2 P 2 B2 B2 P 2 Q 2 0 31
where c1 should be chosen to meet the conditions c1 > r1. with Q 2
2 2
diagfq1 ; q2 g.
Note that the LQR design can guarantee
Combining (18) with (22), the proposed low force control is gi- the stability of the closed-loop system.
ven by For the other terms in the system (26), the feedforward control
u q1 T T is used to compensate them.
1 B1 P 1 et l1 sgnx1 c 1 sgne P 1 B1 uff 1
_ 23
with uff 1 m1 m2
Fd b2 bm
Fd 1
F . m1 b1 bm 1
ck2 ck2 c d uff 2 Fd Fd Fd 32
ck1 ck1 c
Theorem 1. Consider the system (11). If the proposed low force Finally, the proposed composite high force control law is given
controller (23) is applied to the system (11) and the condition c1 > r1 by
is satised, then the state e is asymptotically stable.
T
u q1
2 B2 P 2 et uff 2 ; 33
Proof 1. Consider a Lyapunov function Taking a similar proof as in Theorem 1, we have the following
stability result for the high force.
V eT P1 e 24
Its time derivative is given by Theorem 2. Consider the system (26). If the proposed high force
controller (33) is applied to the system (26), then the state e is
V_ eT AT1 P1 P1 A1 e 2eT P1 B1 u 2eT P1 B1 Df x_ 1 d1 asymptotically stable.
6 eT AT1 P1 P 1 A1 e 2eT P1 B1 u 2eT P1 B1 Df x_ 1 2jeT P 1 B1 jr1
3.3.3. Switching control
where we have used the condition (21). Whenever the state of the system goes from low force range to
Substituting the control (23) into the above inequality yields high force range or from high force range to low force range, the
control law should also change accordingly. The switching law is
V_ 6 eT AT1 P1 P 1 A1 q1 PB1 BT1 P1 e q1 eT P1 B1 BT1 P1 e designed according to the mechanism model as shown in Fig. 4.
2jeT P1 B1 jc1 2jeT PBjr1 It can be seen that the force control is naturally switched to the
high force when the force being greater than the maximum value
Since the Eq. (19) holds, it follows that of the low force range, while it is switched to the low force when
V_ 6 eT Q 1 q1 P1 B1 BT1 P1 e 2jeT P1 B1 jc1 r1 25 the force being less than the maximum value of the low force
range. Based on these principles of the switching, we develop the
This implies that V_ < 0 if c1 > r1. The proof of Theorem 1 is com- following control law which results in a switching controller for
pleted. h the compliant actuator
Next, let us see the high force control.
uH ; F d P F s
u 34
3.3.2. High force control uL ; Fd < Fs
The controller is proposed according to the design method as where uH and uL are the individual control for the high force or the
presented in previous subsection. low force control as described in previous sections, Fd is the desired
Dene the error e1(t) = Fd(t) F1(t) and the derivative error force, and Fs is the switching point which is the maximum value of
e2(t) = e1(t). Let e(t) = [e1(t), e2(t)]T. The following error equation is the low force range.
obtained Theoretically speaking, the force transition control from the low
force FL to the high force FH (or from the high force FH to the low
m1 b1 bm 1
e_ A2 e B2 u B2 Fd Fd Fd 26 force FL) should be seamlessly switched at the switching point Fs
ck1 ck1 c
and executed on the corresponding mechanism system. Unfortu-
with nately, due to control error, such transition is sometime not
Please cite this article in press as: Yu H et al. Control design of a novel compliant actuator for rehabilitation robots. Mechatronics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.mechatronics.2013.08.004
6 H. Yu et al. / Mechatronics xxx (2013) xxxxxx
perfect. For example, when executing the low force control uL, it b1 bm b2 bm
F_ d
may act at the mechanism system which belongs to the high force ck1 ck2
range; or the high force control uH executed may work at the
kekkmin Q 2 kek 2kP2 B2 k l1 c1 Fd m1 m1 m2
mechanism system which belongs to the low force range. If such ck1 ck2
situations occur, a theoretical issue then arises as to what about
b1 bm b2 bm
the stability of the closed-loop system under the proposed switch- _
Fd 41
ck1 ck2
ing control? It is quite important to respond to this question for the
safety reason. The following theorem is given to establish a stabil- where kmin Q 2 minfeigenv aluesQ 2 g.
ity result for the switching control. It follows that V_ < 0 as long as
h
i
Theorem 3. Consider both the systems 11, 26. If the proposed
2kP 2 B2 k l1 c1 Fd ck
m1
m1ckm 2
F_ d b1ckb1 m b2ckb2 m
switching controller (34) is applied to the system (11), or the system kek >
1 2
where we have used the Eq. (31). Since the inequality (36) holds, it
where kmin Q 1 minfeigenv aluesQ 1 g.
follows that
It follows that V_ < 0 as long as
h
i
V_ 6 kmin Q 2 kek2 2kekkP2 B2 l1 sgnx_ 1 c1 sgneT P 1 B1
2kP1 B1 k l1 r1 Fd m1 m2
ck2
m1
ck
F_ d b2ckb2 m b1ckb1 m
m1 m1 m2 b1 bm b2 bm kek >
1
x1
Fd F_ d k kmin Q 1
ck1 ck2 ck1 ck2
6 kmin Q 2 kek2 2kekkP 2 B2 k l1 c1 d m1 m1 m2
F Then, V_ is negative outside the compact set. This demonstrates
ck1 ck2
that the state e is uniformly bounded at the low force range.
Please cite this article in press as: Yu H et al. Control design of a novel compliant actuator for rehabilitation robots. Mechatronics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.mechatronics.2013.08.004
H. Yu et al. / Mechatronics xxx (2013) xxxxxx 7
3277 1
2723
Input Signal
0.5
Voltage (V)
723
0
1277
0.5
3277 1
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
Time (s)
Fig. 5. Experimental set-up. (a)
4267 200
4. Experimental results
2400 100
Output Signal
Force (N)
In this section, the proposed control is applied to a real compli- 200 0
ant actuator. The experimental setup is shown in Fig. 5. The system
consists of the linear compliant actuator, two encoders, a motor 2000 100
driver and a PC with the controller. The compliant actuator is actu-
ated by one brushless dc motor (MAXON 311537), capable of gen- 4200 200
erating 1130mNm stall torque. The rst encoder (it is Encoder 1 in
6400 300
Fig. 5) is used to check the low force, while this encoder with other 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
encoder (it is Encoder 2 in Fig. 5) is used to measure the high force. Time (s)
The motor driver is Elmo Harmonica 5/60 which can provide a
maximum power output 200 W. The controller is the NI Compac- (b)
tRIO 9074 programmable automation controller that is an ad-
Fig. 7. Signals used in identication: low force range. (a) Input signal. (b) Output
vanced embedded control and data acquisition system designed response.
for applications that require high performance and reliability. In
the controller, we use NI 9215 (Analog Input module), NI 9263
(Analog Output module), and NI 9516 (Encoder module) for the signal and the output force response of the open-loop actuator sys-
data acquisition. The entire control algorithm is written into two tem are shown in Fig. 7. It should be noted that the input/output
modules: monitoring (signal generator and program monitoring) signals obtained are based on 32 bit FPGA and have no units. To
and FPGA (control algorithm). The functional block-diagram of illustrate their corresponding actual meanings, the second labels
the entire control system is shown in Fig. 6. The sampling period of the Y-axis are given in the gures. Based on the input/output sig-
for our test is chosen as 0.5 ms. nals, we use MATLAB to identify the model, where the least square
identication algorithm is used. With the help of the System
Identication Toolbox of MATLAB, the linear model of the actuator
4.1. Model identication is given by
For the control application, it is necessary to identify the model F1 208:3304F 1 11:838F_ 1 197:22u 46
of the compliant actuator. From the analysis of Section 3, it is In order to evaluate the identication performance, the
known that the model structure is a linear second order model variance-accounted-for factor is chosen as Bestt model, which is
which is described by a relationship from the input signal u to dened as
the output signal F1. The system identication is to identify the !
parameters of the model from available inputoutput data. The v arF 1 bF 1
Bestfit 100 1 47
choice of an input signal should contain many frequencies. As v arF 1
the actuator works at low frequency, square wave signal is enough
for our application. In the experiment, the model of the low force where b
F 1 is the model output. The comparison of the simulated out-
range is identied rst. The input signal for the test consists of a put and the actual measured output is shown in Fig. 8 and Bestt in
square and 1 Hz which is around the working frequency. The input MATLAB Toolbox is 88.18. As observed, the model output is closed
Please cite this article in press as: Yu H et al. Control design of a novel compliant actuator for rehabilitation robots. Mechatronics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.mechatronics.2013.08.004
8 H. Yu et al. / Mechatronics xxx (2013) xxxxxx
Force: Measured and Model Output to the measured actual output force, although they are slightly
4267
Measured output different at some points. The nonlinear model is given by
Model output
2400 F_ A1 F B1 u B1 Df x_ 1 d1 48
Output Signal
with
200
T 0 1
F F 1 ; F_ 1 ; A1 ;
2000 208:3304 11:8381
0
4200
B1 49
197:22
where Df x_ 1 is friction force and d1 is the disturbance.
6400
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Next, the high force model is identied. Since the high force is
Time (s) large, square wave signal may damage the hardware due to fre-
quent jumping. To prevent this occurrence, the identication for
Fig. 8. Model validation at low force range: dashdot line represents measured the high force range is based on the step response. The input and
signal; solid line represents model output. output signals used in the experiment are shown in Fig. 9. As indi-
cated in the identication of the low force range, since the signals
obtained have no units, the second label is also given in Fig. 9 to
show the corresponding physical meanings. With the help of the
13107 4
12000 System Identication Toolbox of MATLAB, the following linear
3.5
model is obtained.
10000 3
Input Signal
Voltage (V)
4533 200
Force (N)
Please cite this article in press as: Yu H et al. Control design of a novel compliant actuator for rehabilitation robots. Mechatronics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.mechatronics.2013.08.004
H. Yu et al. / Mechatronics xxx (2013) xxxxxx 9
1.5 100
Actual
1.25 Desired
80
Force (N)
Force (N)
0.75 60
0.5
0.25 40
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 20
Time (s)
0
Fig. 11. Friction estimation. 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
Time (s)
(a)
100
Actual
Desired
3
80
2
60
1
40 0
20 1
0 2
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
Time (s) Time (s)
(a) (b)
1.4 Fig. 13. Tracking control performance of low force with a frequency of 2 Hz (the PD
control).
1.2
Force error (N)
0.8 100
Actual
Desired
0.6
80
0.4
Force (N)
0.2 60
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 40
Time (s)
(b) 20
1
is given by
Please cite this article in press as: Yu H et al. Control design of a novel compliant actuator for rehabilitation robots. Mechatronics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.mechatronics.2013.08.004
10 H. Yu et al. / Mechatronics xxx (2013) xxxxxx
310
Actual
Desired
300
290
Force (N)
280
270
260
250
240
0 1 2 3 4 5
Time (s)
(a)
15
Fig. 17. Ankle rehabilitation robot.
10
4.3.1. Low force tracking control
Force error (N)
5 Using the proposed control law (54), Fig. 12 shows the control
results, where the top gure is the output force response and the
0 bottom one is the force tracking error. Thanks to the low-compli-
ance spring, it is observed that the maximum tracking error
5
achieved is very small, that is 1.25 N. Alternative way to evaluate
10 the control performance is based on the variance-accounted-for
factor, checking the delity of the generated output force (readers
15 can refer to [11] for the detailed content). The value for the force
0 1 2 3 4 5
delity according to the given denition of [11] is 99.9%. As ex-
Time (s)
pected, the force prole generated by the low-compliance spring
(b) has very high accuracy.
To further evaluate the performance of the proposed controller,
Fig. 15. Tracking control performance of high force with a frequency of 1 Hz. it is also compared with the PD control without the friction com-
pensation and sliding mode scheme. The reference with a fre-
quency of 2 Hz is used as a desired force prole. For a fair
comparison, the PD control parameters are the same as the pro-
posed controller. Fig. 13 shows the results using the PD control.
320
Actual
With the same reference trajectory, the control performance using
300 Desired the proposed controller is also measured and the results are shown
SP
in Fig. 14. It is observed that the force control reaches to a maxi-
280 mum tracking error of 3 N by the PD control, compared to a max-
Force (N)
260 imum tracking error of 1.25 N when the proposed control scheme
is used. This shows that the proposed controller can offer better
240
control performance than that of the conventional PD control.
220
Please cite this article in press as: Yu H et al. Control design of a novel compliant actuator for rehabilitation robots. Mechatronics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.mechatronics.2013.08.004
H. Yu et al. / Mechatronics xxx (2013) xxxxxx 11
5.65 N with the current encoder and torsional spring stiffness used
80
in the design. From the gure, it can be seen that although the con-
Actual troller switches between low and high forces frequently, the
60 Desired
closed-loop system is still stable. This further veries our theoret-
40 ical analysis in Theorem 3.
In summary, it can be concluded that: (1) the LQR-based PD
Force (N)
Please cite this article in press as: Yu H et al. Control design of a novel compliant actuator for rehabilitation robots. Mechatronics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.mechatronics.2013.08.004
12 H. Yu et al. / Mechatronics xxx (2013) xxxxxx
spring at the high force range, a truly compliant actuator with [11] Veneman JF, Ekkelenkamp R, Kruidhof R, van der Helm F, van der Kooij H. A
series elastic- and bowden-cable-based actuation system for use as torque
excellent force control delity. Theoretical analysis for the
actuator in exoskeleton-type robots. The International Journal of Robotics
controller design has been given to guarantee the stability of the Research 2006;25(3):26181.
closed-loop system, especially for the switching control law. [12] Veneman JF, Kruidhof R, Hekman E, Ekkelenkamp R, Van Asseldonk E, van der
Experimental results have conrmed that the proposed controller Kooij H. Design and evaluation of the lopes exoskeleton robot for interactive
gait rehabilitation. IEEE Transactions on Neural System, Rehabiliation and
can achieve good performance for the low, high force, and Engineering 2007;15(3):37986.
switching control. In the next stage of our research, we will [13] F. Sergi, D. Accoto, G. Carpino, N.L. Tagliamonte, E. Guglielmelli, Design and
collaborate with clinical partners to test our exoskeleton robot characterization of a compact rotary series elastic actuator for knee assistance
during overground walking, in: The fourth IEEE RAS/EMBS International
for gait rehabilitation. Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics, Roma, Italy, June
2427, 2012, pp. 19311936.
References [14] M. Grun, R. Muller, U. Konigorski, Model based control of series elastic
actuators, in: The fourth IEEE RAS/EMBS International Conference on
Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics, Roma, Italy, June 2427, 2012, pp.
[1] Yu H, Spenko M, Dubowsky S. An adaptive shared control system for an
538543.
intelligent mobility aid for the elderly. Autonomous Robots 2003;15:5366.
[15] D. Robinson, Design and Analysis of Series Elasticity in Closedloop Actuator
[2] C. Zhu, M. Oda, H. Yu, H. Watanabe, Y. Yan, Walking support and power
Force Control, Ph.D. thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,
assistance of a wheelchair typed omnidirectional mobile robot with
June, 2000.
admittance control mobile robots current trends, in: Zoran Gacovski (Ed.),
[16] H.Yu, S.N. Huang, G. Chen, S.L. Toh, M. STA Cruz, Y. Ghorbel, C. Zhu, Y. Yin,
ISBN: 978-953-307-716-1, InTech., 2011.
Design and analysis of a novel compact compliant actuator with variable
[3] T. Nef, M. Mihelj, G. Colombo, R. Riener, ARMin-robot for rehabilitation of the
impedance, in: Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and
upper extremities, in: Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on
Biomimetics (ROBIO), 2012, pp. 11881193.
Robotics and Automation, 2006, pp. 31523157.
[17] H.Yu, M. STA Cruz, G. Chen, S.N. Huang, C. Zhu, E. Chew, Y.S. Ng, N.V. Thakor,
[4] Jezernik S, Colombo G, Keller T, Morari F. Robotic orthosis lokomat: a
Mechanical design of a portable kneeanklefoot Robot, in: Proceedings of
rehabilitation and research tool. Neuromodulation 2003;6(2):10815.
2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2013,
[5] M. Wassink, R. Carloni, S. Stramigioli, PortHamiltonian analysis of a novel
pp. 21752180.
robotic nger concept for minimal actuation variable impedance grasping, in:
[18] D.W. Robinson, G.A. Pratt, Force controllable hydro-elastic actuator, in:
Proceedings of the 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and
Proceedings of 2000 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and
Automation, 2010, pp. 771776.
Automation (ICRA), vol. 2, 2000, pp. 13211327.
[6] G.A. Pratt, M.M. Williamson, Series elastic actuators, in: IEEE International
[19] Vallery H, Veneman J, Asseldonk E, Ekkelenkamp R, Buss M, Kooij H. Compliant
Workshop on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 1995), Pittsburg, USA,
actuation of rehabilitation robots. IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine
1995, pp. 399406.
2008;15(3):609.
[7] Sugar T. A novel selective compliant actuator. Mechatronics
[20] G. Wyeth, Control issues for velocity sourced series elastic actuators, in:
2002;12(9):115771.
Proceedings of the Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation,
[8] Pratt J, Krupp B, Morse C. Series elastic actuators for high delity force control.
Auckland, 2006.
Industrial Robot 2002;29(3):23441.
[21] H. Vallery, R. Ekkelenkamp, H. van der Kooij, M. Buss, Passive and accurate
[9] D.W. Robinson, J.E. Pratt, D.J. Paluska, G.A. Pratt, Series elastic actuator
torque control of series elastic actuators, in: Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ
development for a biomimetic walking robot, in: Proceedings of the 1999 IEEE/
International Conference on Mechatronic and Embedded Systems and
ASME International Confernece on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, 1999,
Applications, 2006, pp. 16.
pp. 561568.
[22] Kong K, Bae J, Tomizuka M. Control of rotary series elastic actuator for ideal
[10] J.E. Pratt, B.T. Krupp, C.J. Morse, S.H. Collins, The roboknee: an exoskeleton for
force-mode actuation in humanrobot interaction applications. IEEE/ASME
enhancing strength and endurance during walking, in: Proceedings of the 2004
Transactions on Mechatronics 2009;14(1):10518.
IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 2004, pp. 2430
[23] Slotine JJE, Li W. Applied Nonlinear Control. Prentice-Hall; 1991.
2435.
Please cite this article in press as: Yu H et al. Control design of a novel compliant actuator for rehabilitation robots. Mechatronics (2013), http://dx.doi.org/
10.1016/j.mechatronics.2013.08.004