Article

Journal of Vibration and Control

1–18

Model-free control using time delay ! The Author(s) 2018

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estimation and fractional-order DOI: 10.1177/1077546317750978
journals.sagepub.com/home/jvc
nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode
for uncertain lower-limb exoskeleton

Saim Ahmed , Haoping Wang and Yang Tian

Abstract
A robotic exoskeleton is a nonlinear system, which is subjected to parametric uncertainties and external disturbances.
Due to this reason, it is difficult to obtain the exact model of the system, and without knowledge of the system, it cannot
be compensated accurately. In this study, time delay estimation (TDE)-based model-free fractional-order nonsingular fast
terminal sliding mode control (MFF-TSM) is proposed for the lower-limb robotic exoskeleton in the existence of
uncertainties and external disturbance. The main characteristic of the proposed scheme is that it controls the system
without relying on the knowledge of exoskeleton dynamics. At first, the fractional-order (FO) with nonsingular fast
terminal sliding mode control (NFTSM) is adopted to provide a precise trajectory tracking performance, fast finite-time
speed of convergence, singularity-free and chatter-free control inputs. And then, the proposed controller employs TDE,
to make the controller model independent, which directly estimates the uncertain exoskeleton dynamics with external
disturbances. Later, asymptotical stability analysis of the overall system and finite-time convergence are investigated and
ensured using Lyapunov theorem. Finally, the simulation results are conducted to validate the efficacy of the proposed
control method.

Keywords
Finite-time convergence, fractional-order, model-free control, robotic exoskeleton, terminal sliding mode control, time
delay estimation

1. Introduction
In general, robotic devices are developed to reduce
human effort and/or to perform and execute particular
tasks in a tough environment. In a number of robotic
devices, the exoskeleton is a system which reduces
human effort, such as it has the capability to perform
repetitive tasks on patients (suffering from paraplegic
or quadriplegic injuries) to improve their muscles, to
augment the potency of the healthy individual beyond
his/her natural abilities, and to supply extra muscle for
walking or stair-climbing of people suffering from mus-
cular weakness (Yan et al., 2015). Mainly, the exoskel-
eton is divided into upper and lower limbs. In terms of
precision and accuracy, a lower-limb exoskeleton is
using for rehabilitation of the spinal cord injury (SCI)
and stroke patients; it provides an efficient approach to
recover patient’s health from a severe condition (Meng
et al., 2015). Basically, there are two techniques
to rehabilitate the patients: active and passive rehabili-
tation approach. When human torque as well as actu-
ator torque is exerted on the exoskeleton this is called
active rehabilitation mode, whereas no human effort
exists in the passive method.
To obtain repetitive therapeutic training, mostly,
the predefined gait trajectory is utilized for the
tracking of the lower-limb rehabilitation exoskeleton.
School of Automation, Nanjing University of Science and Technology,
China
Received: 14 June 2017; accepted: 2 December 2017
Corresponding author:
Haoping Wang, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, School of
Automation, Sino-French International Joint Laboratory of Automatic
Control and Signal Processing (LaFCAS), Nanjing 210094, China.
Email: hp.wang@njust.edu.cn
2 Journal of Vibration and Control 0(0)
Obtaining a desired gait trajectory control, the prede-
fined joint trajectory can be derived from the clinical
gait analysis (CGA) or traced by a normal person
(Long et al., 2017). A variety of control schemes have
been proposed to track the predefined joint trajectories
of lower extremities which can be divided into model-
based and model-free methods. The control scheme
which depends on the dynamic model is called model-
based such as computed torque control and model ref-
erence adaptive control (MRAC), etc. (Van et al., 2013;
Ahmed et al., 2016), whereas the model-free control
technique does not rely on the dynamic model or
where plant dynamics are completely unknown such
as proportional–integral–derivative control (PID) and
recursive model free control, etc. (Belforte et al., 2011;
Wang et al., 2011). The abovementioned model-free
schemes are easy to implement and model-independent,
but these are sensitive and not robust to parameter
variations and external disturbances. Due to this
reason, the closed-loop system may lead to instability
and it requires nonlinear controller to improve the per-
formance of the uncertain nonlinear systems.
Sliding mode control (SMC) is a renowned non-
linear control method; it has the ability to handle
uncertain nonlinear systems with external disturb-
ances, and also it is low sensitive to the system’s par-
ameter variations. To improve traditional SMC and
overcome the proposed associated problem such as
finite-time stability, rapid response, robustness, and
higher precision, terminal SMC (TSM) has been pro-
posed. The nonsingular TSM (NTSM), fast TSM
(FTSM) and nonsingular fast TSM (NFTSM) have
been developed to obtain fast time convergence and
eliminate singularity problems (Feng et al., 2002;
Mobayen, 2015b; Mobayen, 2015c; Van et al., 2017).
SMC has also been analyzed with the linear matrix
inequality (LMI) approach for the uncertain and dis-
turbed nonlinear systems (Mobayen et al., 2016;
Mobayen and Baleanu, 2017). To estimate the
unknown dynamics and to obtain the advantages of
SMC, adaptive control with SMC has been proposed
for the nonlinear uncertain systems (Mobayen, 2015a;
Mobayen and Baleanu, 2016). Moreover, a recursive
TSM has been developed for nonholonomic systems,
and the disturbance has been rejected by a TSM-based
observer. Consequently, the error converges to zero in
a finite time (Mobayen and Javadi, 2017).
To improve the performance of controller, frac-
tional-order (FO) can be integrated with SMC.
However, a FO controller has been used with
well-known control techniques such as proportional–
derivative control (PD), PID, adaptive control, optimal
control, SMC, etc. (Padula and Visioli, 2012; Zhang
et al., 2012; Aguila-Camacho and Duarte-Mermoud,
2013; Zhong and Li, 2015). FO with TSM and
NTSM has been introduced in Dadras and Momeni,
(2012) and Wang et al. (2016c), respectively.
Furthermore, using adaptive FO nonsingular fast
TSM (FO-TSMC) has been proposed for tracking of
the robotic manipulator, in which the nominal model of
the plant has been assumed to be known
(Nojavanzadeh and Badamchizadeh, 2016).
In the context of control of a lower-limb exoskeleton,
numerous SMC schemes have been proposed. Multi-
input multi-output SMC has been developed for a sim-
ultaneous control of the angular position trajectory and
compliance knee joint mechanism of a lower-limb exo-
skeleton driven by pneumatic muscles (Cao et al., 2017).
Moreover, a cable-driven soft joint rehabilitation exo-
skeleton has been controlled by SMC to implement low-
level joint torque control (Jarrett and McDaid, 2017).
Radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) with
second-order SMC has been designed to control a
shank-foot orthosis system (Mefoued, 2015). Besides a
controller, SMC-based observers have also been pro-
posed for the joint orthosis to estimate the uncertainties
and muscular torque generated by the human (Achili
et al., 2016; Mohammed et al., 2016). In addition, to
overcome the singularity problem in SMC, a robust con-
troller based on NTSM has been designed to control an
active exoskeleton used for rehabilitation purposes, in
which the unknown bounded dynamical model has been
assumed (Madani et al., 2016).
Mainly the abovementioned control schemes for
exoskeleton have not been considered disturbances
and systems uncertainties, and more than a few
schemes have no fast finite-time convergence. Due to
the nonlinear nature of the robotic exoskeleton the
human parameters are not exactly known; it is difficult
to compute the unknown time-varying parameters and
to obtain the accurate dynamical model of the system.
Therefore, the model-free approach is preferred, and it
has a capability to control the unknown uncertain
dynamics of the exoskeleton. In literature, various
model-free techniques have been proposed such as
extended state observer, time delay estimation (TDE),
recursive model-free control, intelligent proportional-
integral (PI)/ (PD)/ (PID), and so on (Wang et al.,
2011; Fliess and Join, 2013; Zhao et al., 2015; Jin
et al., 2017). However, the TDE method has a simple
structure, is easy to implement, and is robust to esti-
mate the unknown uncertain system’s dynamics by
using time delayed systems (Youcef-Toumi and Ito,
1988; Hsia et al., 1991). Furthermore, TDE has been
effectively implemented to control the unknown
dynamics of robotic systems (Jin et al., 2008; Chang
and Jeong, 2012). Recently, the model-free techniques
have been proposed regarding SMC (Li et al., 2016;
Wang et al., 2016a; Wang et al., 2016b), in which,
model-free TSM for attitude and position control of
Ahmed et al. 3

quadrotor, intelligent PI with SMC for direct power Riemann-Liouville (RL), Grunwald-Letnikov (GL),
control of doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) and Caputo. Therefore, the mostly used FO integral
wind turbine systems and data-driven model-free adap- and derivative are defined as: The RL fractional inte-
tive SMC method (MFASMC) for exoskeleton have gral and derivative of  th-order of function f ðtÞ with
been developed, respectively. To the best of our know- respect to t and the terminal value a are given by
ledge, there is no literature on the model-free control of
Z t
exoskeleton systems realized with TDE.  1 fð Þ
a I t fðtÞ ¼ d ð1aÞ
In this paper, the uncertain lower-limb exoskeleton ðÞ a ðt   Þ1
plant dynamics with external disturbances are
considered entirely unknown. Motivated by the above- Z t
mentioned model-free techniques, TDE is utilized,  d fðtÞ 1 d fð Þ
a Dt fðtÞ ¼ ¼ d ð1bÞ
which is easy to implement and uses the delayed dt ð1  Þ dt a ðt   Þ
system to estimate the system’s unknown dynamics,
with fractional-order nonsingular fast terminal sliding where m  1 5  5 m, m 2 @ and ðÞ is Euler’s
mode control. Therefore, the main contributions can be Gamma function defined as
summarized as follows: Z 1
ðÞ ¼ et t1 dt ð2Þ
a. Sliding mode surface is developed using FO and 0
NFTSM, which provides various advantages in
terms of fast finite-time convergence, rapid trajec- while I  and D denote the fractional integral and
tory tracking performance, and attenuates the chat- derivative, respectively.
tering occurrence in the control torque inputs.
b. Model-free control with FO nonsingular fast TSM Definition 2. (Youcef-Toumi and Ito, 1988). The non-
(MFF-TSM) is proposed using TDE technique, to linear system of function xðtÞ is described as follows
control the unknown uncertain dynamics of the
lower-limb exoskeleton in the existence of external x_ ðtÞ ¼ fðx, tÞ þ Bðx, tÞuðtÞ þ dðtÞ ð3Þ
disturbances.
c. The asymptotic stability proof of the closed-loop where f ðx, tÞ is unknown system dynamics, Bðx, tÞ
system is established by Lyapunov synthesis. is distribution matrix, d ðtÞ is unknown disturb-
ance, and uðtÞ is the control input. At first, separate
The rest of this paper is structured as follows: Main the known and unknown dynamics, (3) can be
definitions and lemmas about FO calculus and TDE are rewritten as
introduced in Section 2. A dynamical model of exoskel-
eton is presented in Section 3. Particulars of the sliding fðx, tÞ þ dðtÞ ¼ x_ ðtÞ  Bðx, tÞuðtÞ ð4Þ
surface design and development of TDE-based model-
free control are discussed in Section 4. Stability analysis, To implement TDE and obtain estimation of
which is based on Lyapunov theorem, is given in Section unknown dynamics; delayed value, with time delay L,
5. In Section 6, compared resultant simulations are illu- of (4) can be formulated as
strated to validate and demonstrate the efficacy of the
proposed method. Finally, conclusions of this paper and f^ðx, tÞ þ d^ðtÞ ¼ fðx, t  LÞ þ dðt  LÞ
future recommendations are given in Section 7. ð5Þ
¼ x_ ðt  LÞ  Bðx, t  LÞuðt  LÞ

Notations
where f^ðx, tÞ and d^ðtÞ are estimation of unknown system
The notations throughout the paper will be used as dynamics.
follows: sgnðÞ, kk and j  j represent the signum func-
tion, Euclidean norm, and absolute value, respectively. Property 1. (Podlubny, 1998). The nth-order derivative
The asterisk * sign indicates the element-wise multipli- (dn =dtn ) of the fractional derivative operator a Dt fðtÞ can
cation between two vectors, and ðÞT signifies the be transformed as
transpose.  n 
dn     d fðtÞ
a D t fð tÞ ¼ a Dt ¼ t Dþn
a fðtÞ ð6Þ
2. Preliminaries dtn dtn

Definition 1. (Li and Deng, 2007). There are three Lemma 1. (Yu et al., 2005). For finite-time stability
definitions commonly used for FO calculus such as with fast time convergence, the Lyapunov function
4 Journal of Vibration and Control 0(0)

VðtÞ with initial value V0 is given as where q, q,_ and q€ 2 <n1 are the joint’s angular
position, velocity, and acceleration, respectively.
MðqÞ 2 <nn is the  positive
 definite inertia matrix,
V_ ðtÞ  VðtÞ  #V ðtÞ, 8t  t0 , Vðt0 Þ  0 ð7Þ 0 5 lmin ðMðqÞÞ  MðqÞ  lmax ðMðqÞÞ, where lmin
and lmax denote the minimum and the maximum eigen-
where,  4 0, # 4 0 and 0 5  5 1, and VðtÞ satisfies values, Cðq, q_ Þ 2 <nn is the Coriolis and centripetal
the inequality at any t0 forces, GðqÞ 2 <n1 represents the gravitational
matrix, Pðq, q_Þ 2 <n1 denotes the friction forces,
# V1 ðt0 Þ þ # ð1Þðtt0 Þ  2 <n1 and h 2 <n1 represent the vectors of joint
V1 ðtÞ   þ e , t0  t 5 t1 torque and human torque, respectively. And d 2 <n1
 
ð8Þ expresses the unknown external disturbances.
For the implementation of TDE, the dynamic equa-
and tion of an exoskeleton (15) can be rewritten as

VðtÞ ¼ 0, 8t  t1 ð9Þ Nq€ þ ðq, q,

_ q€ Þ ¼  ð16Þ

Thus, the corresponding settling time ts can be cal- where _ q€ Þ ¼ MðqÞq€  Nq€ þ Cðq, q_Þq_ þ GðqÞþ
ðq, q,
culated as Pðq, q_Þ  d  h illustrates all the unknown dynamics
of the exoskeleton while N is positive constant diagonal
1 V1 ðt0 Þ þ # matrix.
ts  t0 þ ln ð10Þ From (16), the tracking error equation of the exo-
ð1  Þ #
skeleton can be formulated as
Lemma 2. (Mobayen, 2015d). For finite-time stability
with fast time convergence, Lyapunov function VðtÞ Ne€ þ ðq, q,
_ q€ Þ ¼   Nq€d ð17Þ
with initial value V0 is given as
e€ ¼ N1 ð  Nq€d  ðq, q,
_ q€ ÞÞ ð18Þ

V_ ðtÞ  #V ðtÞ, 8t  t0 , Vðt0 Þ  0 ð11Þ where e ¼ q  qd denotes the error, and q and qd rep-
resent the actual and desired joint position vectors,
where, # 4 0 and 0 5  5 1, and VðtÞ satisfies the respectively.
inequality at any t0

V1 ðtÞ  V1 ðt0 Þ  #ð1  Þðt  t0 Þ, t0  t 5 t1 4. Development of TDE-based

ð12Þ model-free control with
fractional-order nonsingular fast
and
terminal sliding mode control
VðtÞ ¼ 0, 8t  t1 ð13Þ In this section, the designing of model-free control using
TDE with FO nonsingular fast TSM (MFF-TSM)
The corresponding reaching time tr can be involves two major steps. The first step includes compos-
calculated as ing the suitable sliding surface using NFTSM, and the
model-free control technique based on TDE is designed
V1 ðt0 Þ that forces the system states to reach the prescribed slid-
tr  t0 þ ð14Þ ing manifold in a finite time. Subsequently, to enhance
#ð1  Þ
the performance of the controller, FO is integrated with
a sliding surface and then the model-free control law is
developed by TDE. Thus, the robust performance of a
3. Dynamical modeling proposed control scheme for an exoskeleton system is
In this section, dynamic modeling of the n-DOF guaranteed in the presence of uncertainties and external
(degrees of freedom) lower-limb exoskeleton is dis- disturbances.
cussed. The robotic exoskeleton dynamic equation
can be expressed as follows
4.1. Model-free NFTSM (MF-TSM)
MðqÞq€ þ Cðq, q_ Þq_ þ GðqÞ þ Pðq, q_ Þ ¼  þ h þ d ð15Þ Based on current remarkable SMC schemes given
in Madani et al. (2016) and Nojavanzadeh and
Ahmed et al.
Badamchizadeh (2016), this paper proposed a new slid-
ing surface using the advantages of NFTSM. This also
offers the benefits of classical SMC and NFTSM, and
its convergence speed is better than the traditional
SMC. Therefore, based on the properties of NFTSM,
the following sliding surface is developed:
SðtÞ ¼ e_ðtÞ þ 1 eðtÞu=v þ2 eðtÞ’ sgnðeðtÞÞ ð19Þ
where SðtÞ 2 <n1 denotes the sliding mode surface,
1 2 <nn and 2 2 <nn represent the positive diagonal
matrices, u and v are positive odd integers fulfilling the
relation 1 5 u=v 5 2 and ’ 4 0.
The time derivative of (19) can be computed as
follows
u  ðuvÞ=v  ’1
S_ðtÞ ¼ e€ðtÞ þ 1 eðtÞ e_ðtÞ þ 2 ’eðtÞ e_ðtÞ
v
ð20Þ
After proposing the sliding surface, the model-free
control approach will be considered for the unknown
uncertain dynamics of the lower-limb exoskeleton sub-
jected to unknown external disturbances.
We now propose model-free control law based on
TDE and NFTSM (MF-TSM) for the unknown
dynamics of the exoskeleton, which can be designed
as follows
^ þ Nq€d  NKSðtÞ  jSj  NKsgnðSÞ jSj
 ðtÞ ¼ 
u  ðuvÞ=v  ’1 ð21Þ
 N1 eðtÞ e_ðtÞ  N2 ’eðtÞ e_ðtÞ
v
^ denotes TDE, which can be represented as:
where 
^ ¼ ðq, q,
 _ q€ Þðt Þ ¼ ðt Þ  Nq€ ðt Þ ð22Þ
in which ðt  Þ denotes a delayed value with a delayed
time , K is a positive diagonal matrix, and 0 5  5 1
is a positive constant.
Remark 1. To estimate the unknown dynamics of exo-
skeleton, a TDE-based model-free controller is estab-
lished in (21). Consequently, the MF-TSM computes
the tracking performance of the uncertain exoskeleton
dynamics under unknown external disturbances.
4.2. Model-free FO-NFTSM (MFF-TSM)
To improve the convergence speed and tracking per-
formance of MF-TSM, the FO derivative and FO inte-
gral are employed with the sliding surface (19), which
can be rewritten as
SðtÞ ¼ e_ðtÞ þ D1 1 eðtÞu=v þD 2 eðtÞ’ sgnðeðtÞÞ ð23Þ
5
where D and D represent the fractional derivative and
fractional integral, respectively.  5 1 and  5 0 are the
fractional orders. On behalf of the property-1, the time
derivative of (23) can be calculated as follows
 ’1
S_ðtÞ ¼ e€ðtÞ þ D 1 eðtÞu=v þD 2 ’eðtÞ e_ðtÞ ð24Þ
and the control law (21) in terms of FO can be modified
as follows

^ þ Nq€ d  NKSðtÞ  jSj þ NKsgnðSÞ jSj
 ðtÞ ¼ 
 ’1 o
þND 1 eðtÞu=v þND 2 ’eðtÞ e_ðtÞ ð25Þ
Remark 2. The proposed scheme MFF-TSM with the
sliding surface (23), and the model-free control law (25),
when applied to the exoskeleton model (15), angular
position ‘q’ tracks the desired trajectory ‘qd ’ in a finite-
time which implies the tracking error lim e ! 0. The
t!1
proposed model structure is shown in Figure 1.
5. Stability analysis
In this section, the stability performance of the system
(15) is verified by the Lyapunov synthesis. The devel-
oped method ensures the unknown uncertain dynamics
of the exoskeleton is robustly asymptotically stable in
the presence of external disturbances and converge in a
finite time.
Theorem 1. Taking into consideration the defined
unknown dynamics of the lower-limb exoskeleton (15)
which has existing uncertainties and external disturb-
ances, with the suggested sliding surface (23), the
closed-loop system trajectory will converge in a finite-
time under the TDE-based model-free control law (25).
Proof. Considering the following Lyapunov functional
candidate is given as
1
VðtÞ ¼ SðtÞT SðtÞ ð26Þ
2
and the time derivative of (26) is obtained as follows
V_ ðtÞ ¼ SðtÞT S_ðtÞ ð27Þ
Substituting (24) into (27), one obtains
h i
 ’1
V_ ðtÞ ¼ SðtÞT e€ðtÞ þ D 1 eðtÞu=v þD 2 ’eðtÞ e_ðtÞ
ð28Þ
6 Journal of Vibration and Control 0(0)

Figure 1. Block diagram of time delay estimation (TDE)-based model-free fractional-order nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode
(MFF-TSM) method.

By putting (18) in (28) yields we can rewrite (32) as

V_ ðtÞ ¼ SðtÞT N1   q€ d  N1 ðq, q,
_ q€ Þ þ D 1 eðtÞu=v  
 ’1 i V_ ðtÞ   SðtÞT KSðtÞ  SðtÞT KsgnSðtÞ kS k
 
þD 2 ’eðtÞ e_ðtÞ ð29Þ 1
 2 kS klm ðKÞ SðtÞT SðtÞ
2 ð33Þ
Moreover, substituting (25) into (29), one has  ðþ1Þ=2
n 1
V_ ðtÞ ¼ SðtÞT N1 ^ þ Nq€ d  ðNKSðtÞ  jSj  2ðþ1Þ=2 kS klm ðKÞ SðtÞT SðtÞ
2
þ NKsgnðSÞ jSj þ ND 1 eðtÞu=v
 ’1
 where lm ðKÞ represents the minimum eigenvalue of K.
þND 2 ’eðtÞ e_ðtÞ  Nq€d  ðq, q,
_ q€ Þ By substituting (26), (33) can be rewritten as
 ’1 i
þD 1 eðtÞu=v þD 2 ’eðtÞ e_ðtÞ ð30Þ V_ ðtÞ  2 kS klm ðKÞV  2ðþ1Þ=2 kS klm ðKÞVðþ1Þ=2
ð34Þ
By simplification of above equation, and implying
ST S ¼ kS k2 , ST sgnðSÞ ¼ kS k and  ffi 1, (31) can According to Lemma 1, when t0 ¼ 0, settling time
be deduced as can be formulated as follows

V_ ðtÞ ¼ K kS k2 kS k  K kS k kS k  N1 k k kS k !
ð1Þ=2
2 1 V0
ð31Þ ts  ln 1 þ ð35Þ
1 ð1  Þ 2
where  ¼ ð ^  ðq, q, _ qÞÞ
€ denotes the error after uti-
lizing TDE and the TDE error  is bounded as ji j  i
with i 4 0, i ¼ 1, 2,    n (Jin et al., 2008). Since K 4 0 where, 1 ¼ 2 kS klm ðKÞ and 2 ¼ 2ðþ1Þ=2 kS klm ðKÞ.
and N 4 0, the stability verification of the overall
system is completed. Remark
 4. Calculating  reaching time, since
 kS k2 kS k þ kS k kS k   kS k2 kS k, (32) can
Remark 3. To compute settling time, note that kS k be modified as:
and k k are multiplying and their product will be very
small while K 4 N1 . Then, we can neglect the term V_ ðtÞ ¼ K kS k2 kS k ð36Þ
N1 k k kS k, and (31) can be expressed as
 
pffiffiffi kS k
  V_ ðtÞ ¼  2K kS k2 pffiffiffi ð37Þ
V_ ðtÞ ¼ K kS k2 þ kS k kS k ð32Þ 2
Ahmed et al. 7

The following inequality can be obtained from (37) Table 1. Parameters of human and robotic exoskeleton.
by replacing (26) as
Thighe Thighh Shanke Shankh

V_ ðtÞ  
V 1=2
ð38Þ li (m) length 0.39 0.39 0.5 0.5
pffiffiffi mi (kg) mass 1.43 9.52 1.82 4.48
where
¼ 2K kS k2 . Ii (kg m2) inertia 0.02 0.14 0.04 0.09
In accordance with Lemma 2, when t0 ¼ 0, reaching di (m) center of mass 0.2 0.2 0.29 0.29
time can be calculated as follows

2V1=2
0
tr ¼ ð39Þ 

0:5 sinðq_ 1 Þ
d ¼ ,
From (35) and (39), it is clearly seen that the ts and tr 1:1 sinðq_ 2 Þ

are inversely proportional to K, while K is proportional cosð2tÞ þ 5, 2t4
h ¼
to  in (21) and (25). Hence, to obtain finite-time con- cosð2tÞ þ 5, 1:25  t  4
vergence and closed-loop system stability simultan-
eously, the suitable value of K should be selected. where m ¼ me þ mh is mass of link, I ¼ Ie þ Ih is the
moment of inertia, ‘l’ is link length, and ‘d’ is the
center of mass, while subscripts ‘e’ and ‘h’ indicate
6. Numerical simulation results
the parameters of exoskeleton and human, respectively.
The simulation results have been established in the The angular positions q1 and q2 denote the hip and
Matlab-Simulink software by using Runge–Kutta knee joints, respectively. Moreover, equivalent desired
solver; the fixed-step is selected as 0.1 ms. At first, position trajectories of hip and knee joints stemming
models of the uncertain 2-DOF (one leg) and 4-DOF are taken from the clinical gait analysis (CGA) data.
(5-links two legs) lower-limb exoskeleton with unknown The cyclical gait period is 2 seconds; however, it can be
external disturbances are discussed. Afterward, param- made periodic by repeating signals. Hence, we can cal-
eters of the proposed control method (MFF-TSM) culate the suitable desired reference as follows (Long
are defined, and to validate the effectiveness of the et al., 2017):
developed method, compared simulation results 8
are illustrated with FO-TSMC (Nojavanzadeh >
> qhip ¼ 3:85 cosð0:33t þ 2:14Þ
>
>
and Badamchizadeh, 2016) technique, which are applied >
> þ 71:6 cosð3:49t  1:88Þ
>
>
on 2-DOF and 4-DOF exoskeleton dynamics, >
<
respectively. þ 41 cosð4:68t  0:3Þ
qd ¼
>
> qknee ¼ 40:9 cosð1:04t  0:208Þ
>
>
>
> þ 157 cosð5:82t  0:047Þ
6.1. Dynamic models of lower-limb exoskeleton >
>
>
: þ 82:3 cosð7:49t  4:13Þ
6.1.1. Two-DOF exoskeleton: one leg model. The following
2-DOF lower-limb exoskeleton dynamics of one
leg (Yang et al., 2009) with system uncertainties, exter- in which qhip and qknee are the desired angular position
nal disturbances and bounded human torque are of hip and knee joints, respectively. Furthermore, the
described as: lower-limb parameters of robotic exoskeleton and
" # normal human are given in Table 1 (Yang et al., 2009).
m1 d21 þ m2 l21 þ I1 m2 l1 d2 cosðq1  q2 Þ
MðqÞ ¼ , 6.1.2. Four-DOF exoskeleton: two legs model. The uncertain
m2 l1 d2 cosðq1  q2 Þ m1 d22 þ I2
4-DOF lower-limb exoskeleton dynamics (Mu and Wu,
" #
ðm1 d1 þ m2 l1 Þ g sinðq1 Þ 2004; Zhang et al., 2010) with external disturbances and
GðqÞ ¼ , bounded human torques are given as follows: The 4-
m2 d2 g sinðq2 Þ DOF (5-links two legs) dynamic model of the exoskel-
" #
0 m2 l1 d2 q_2 sinðq1  q2 Þ eton in the form of M, C, and G is given below,
Cðq, q_ Þ ¼ ,
m2 l1 d2 q_ 1 sinðq1  q2 Þ 0  
M ¼ ½M ij ¼ ij cos qi  qj ,
" #  
0:5q_ 1 þ sinð3q1 Þ C ¼ ½C ij ¼ ij sin qi  qj q_j ,
Pðq, q_ Þ ¼ ,
1:3q_ 2  1:8 sinð2q2 Þ G ¼ ½G i ¼ gi sinðqi Þ
8 Journal of Vibration and Control 0(0)

where i ¼ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and j ¼ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 2 3
cosð2tÞ þ 5, 2t4
! 6 cosð2tÞ þ 5, 1:25  t  4 7
X
5 6 7
6 7
gi ¼ mi di g þ i mn li g 6
h ¼ 6 0 7, and
7
n¼iþ1 6 7
4 0 5
where, i ¼ 0 for i¼3
0
i ¼ 1 for i ¼ 1, 2, 4, 5 2 3
cosð3tÞ
8  5  6 40:9 cosð1:04t  0:208Þ þ 157 cosð5:82t  0:047Þ 7
> P 6 7
>
> 2
Ii þ mi di þ i mn l2i j¼i 6 7
>
> 6 þ82:3 cosð7:49t  4:13Þ 7
< n¼iþ1 ! 6 7
ij ¼ P5 6 3:85 cosð0:33t þ 2:14Þ þ 71:6 cosð3:49t  1:88Þ 7
> i mj dj li þ i j mn li lj j4i 6 7
>
> qd ¼ 6 7
>
> n¼jþ1 6 þ41 cosð4:68t  0:3Þ 7
: 6 7
ji j5i 6 40:9 cosð1:04t  0:208Þ þ 157 cosð5:82t  0:047Þ 7
6 7
2 3 6 7
4 þ82:3 cosð7:49t  4:13Þ 5
0:5q_1 þ sinð3q1 Þ
6 7 cosð3tÞ
6 1:3q_2  1:8 sinð2q2 Þ 7
6 7
Pðq, q_ Þ ¼ 6 7
6 0:3q_3  0:6 sinð1:5q3 Þ 7,
6 7 Moreover, the parameters of exoskeleton and
4 1:4q_4  1:5 sinð2:5q4 Þ 5
human for the 4-DOF model are taken from Ahmed
0:5q_5  1:8 sinð3q5 Þ et al. (2016).
2 3
0:5 sinðq_ 1 Þ
6 7
6 1:1 sinðq_ 2 Þ 7 6.2. MFF-TSM comparative simulations applied
6 7
d ¼ 6 7
6 0:1 sinðq_ 3 Þ 7, on 2-DOF and 4-DOF exoskeleton
6 7
4 1:2 sinðq_ 4 Þ 5 To demonstrate and verify the performance of MFF-
0:3 sinðq_ 5 Þ TSM, the proposed method is applied on 2-DOF (one

Figure 2. Comparison of position tracking trajectories between fractional-order terminal sliding mode control (FO-TSMC) and
model-free fractional-order nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode (MFF-TSM). (a) joint-1, (b) joint-2.
Ahmed et al. 9

Figure 3. Comparison of position tracking trajectories between model-free terminal sliding mode (MF-TSM) and model-free frac-
tional-order nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode (MFF-TSM). (a) joint-1, (b) joint-2.

Figure 4. Comparison of position tracking errors among fractional-order terminal sliding mode control (FO-TSMC), model-free
terminal sliding mode (MF-TSM) and model-free fractional-order nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode (MFF-TSM). (a) joint-1, (b)
joint-2.
10 Journal of Vibration and Control 0(0)

Figure 5. Comparison of velocity tracking trajectories between fractional-order terminal sliding mode control (FO-TSMC) and
model-free fractional-order nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode (MFF-TSM). (a) joint-1, (b) joint-2.

Figure 6. Comparison of velocity tracking trajectories between model-free terminal sliding mode (MF-TSM) and model-free frac-
tional-order nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode (MFF-TSM). (a) joint-1, (b) joint-2.
Ahmed et al. 11

Figure 7. Comparison of velocity tracking errors among fractional-order terminal sliding mode control (FO-TSMC), model-free
terminal sliding mode (MF-TSM) and model-free fractional-order nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode control (MFF-TSM). (a) joint-1,
(b) joint-2.

Figure 8. Comparison of control torque inputs among fractional-order terminal sliding mode control (FO-TSMC), model-free
terminal sliding mode (MF-TSM) and model-free fractional-order nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode (MFF-TSM). (a) joint-1,
(b) joint-2.
12 Journal of Vibration and Control 0(0)

Figure 9. Comparison of sliding surfaces among fractional-order terminal sliding mode control (FO-TSMC), model-free
terminal sliding mode (MF-TSM) and model-free fractional-order nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode (MFF-TSM). (a) joint-1,
(b) joint-2.

Figure 10. Comparison of time delay estimation (TDE) estimations between model-free terminal sliding mode (MF-TSM) and
model-free fractional-order nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode (MFF-TSM). (a) joint-1, (b) joint-2.
Ahmed et al. 13

Figure 11. Comparison of control inputs under human effort between fractional-order terminal sliding mode control
(FO-TSMC)and model-free fractional-order nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode (MFF-TSM). (a) joint-1, (b) joint-2.

Figure 12. Comparison of control inputs under human effort between model-free terminal sliding mode (MF-TSM) and model-free
fractional-order nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode (MFF-TSM). (a) joint-1, (b) joint-2.
14 Journal of Vibration and Control 0(0)

leg) and 4-DOF (two legs) exoskeleton models, For comparative analysis on 2-DOF model, MF-
respectively. TSM (subsection 4.1) and FO-TSMC techniques are
employed. Therefore, similar parameters are used for
6.2.1. MFF-TSM comparative simulation on 2-DOF MF-TSM and MFF-TSM, while FO-TSMC sliding
model. For 2-DOF model, the following proposed con- surface, control law, adaptive laws, and its parameters
trol parameters
 are selected: for the sliding surface (23), are given as follows (Nojavanzadeh and
1 ¼ diag 70 120 , 2 ¼ diag 50 100 , u=v ¼ 1:1, Badamchizadeh, 2016):
and ’ ¼ 1:5. For  the control law (25),
K ¼ 25  diag 15 10 and  ¼ 0:99. Then, the initial SðtÞ ¼ Dþ1 eðtÞ þ Ae þ leðtÞp=q ð40Þ
conditions of hip and knee joints are selected as
q1 ð0Þ ¼ 1:2 and q2 ð0Þ ¼ 0:7, respectively.  ðtÞ ¼ C0 ðq, q_ Þq_ þ G0 ðqÞ þ M0 ðqÞq€ d
Subsequently, suitable values of FO,  ¼ 0:9 and 
 D M0 ðqÞSðtÞ þ M0 ðqÞjSj sgnðSÞ
 ¼ 0:1, are selected by trail-and-error method. In
addition, the time delay is selected as ¼ 0:0001, and þ M0 ðqÞAe_ þ lðp=qÞM0 ðqÞe_ðtÞ  eðtÞð pqÞ=q ð41Þ

o
an appropriate
 value
 of tuning gain is chosen as þ B^ 0 þ B^ 1 kq k sgnðSÞ
N ¼ diag 0:7 0:7 .

Figure 13. Comparison of position tracking trajectories between fractional-order terminal sliding mode control (FO-TSMC) and
model-free fractional-order nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode (MFF-TSM).
Ahmed et al. 15

_   From Figures 2 to 9, one can easily observe that the

B^ 0 ¼ 1
0
SðtÞ ð42Þ
performances of MFF-TSM and MF-TSM are quite sat-
_    isfactory for the unknown dynamic system, while the
B^ 1 ¼ 1
1
SðtÞq ð43Þ results of MFF-TSM are better than in comparison
    with MF-TSM and FO-TSMC in terms of rapid
where A ¼ diag  20  20 , l ¼ diag 2 2 , p=q ¼ 0:9, response speed, fast finite-time convergence, smaller
¼ 10  diag 5 5 ,  ¼ 0:99, 0 ¼ 1 ¼ 0:05, and tracking error, and has enhanced performance subjected
^0 ð0Þ ¼ ^1 ð0Þ ¼ 5. After that, their corresponding com- to unknown dynamics with uncertainties and external
parative results are illustrated, which shows the joint’s disturbances. Moreover, estimation of unknown
positions tracking in Figures 2 and 3, position system dynamics is depicted in Figure 10. And the com-
tracking errors in Figure 4, joint’s velocities tracking parison analyses of control inputs in terms of human
in Figures 5 and 6, velocity tracking errors in effort are presented in Figures 11 and 12.
Figure 7, control input torques in Figure 8, and sliding Figures 11 and 12 show that the compared perform-
mode surfaces in Figure 9. ance of control input under human effort, which

Figure 14. Comparison of position tracking errors between fractional-order terminal sliding mode control (FO-TSMC) and model-
free fractional-order nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode (MFF-TSM).
16 Journal of Vibration and Control 0(0)

indicates control input, is reducing when human torque
applies, while it is increasing when human effort h ¼ 0.
6.2.2. MFF-TSM comparative simulation on 4-DOF
¼ 10  diagð5, 5, 5,
model. For the 4-DOF exoskeleton, MFF-TSM param-
eters are selected as follows: sliding surface (23) param-
eters are 1 ¼ diagð100, 50, 30, 50, 50Þ, 2 ¼ diagð50, 50,
50, 50, 50Þ, u=v ¼ 1:1, and ’ ¼ 1:5. For the control law
(25), K ¼ 25  diagð10, 10, 10, 10, 10Þ and  ¼ 0:99.
The initial conditions are selected as q1 ð0Þ ¼ 1:1,
q2 ð0Þ ¼ 0:7, q3 ð0Þ ¼ 1:2, q4 ð0Þ ¼ 0:2, and
q5 ð0Þ ¼ 1:2. Moreover, same FO and time delay
values are selected as chosen in subsection 6.2.1, and
suitable value of tuning gain is selected as
N ¼ diagð30, 30, 30, 30, 30Þ.
For comparative analysis, parameters of FO-TSMC
regarding sliding surface, control law, and adaptive
laws are given as follows: A ¼ diagð20, 20, 20, 20, 20Þ,
l ¼ diagð2, 2, 2, 2, 2Þ, p/q¼0.9,
5, 5Þ, 0 ¼ 1 ¼ 0:05, ^0 ð0Þ ¼ ^1 ð0Þ ¼ 5, and  ¼ 0:99.
Therefore, their corresponding comparative results are
demonstrated, which shows the joint’s positions track-
ing, position tracking errors, and control torques in
Figures 13 to 15, respectively.
From Figures 13 to 15, the performance of MFF-
TSM is also satisfied for unknown dynamics of 4-DOF
exoskeleton. Hence, the comparative simulations of
MFF-TSM against FO-TSMC are enhanced and
better in terms of trajectory tracking, convergence
speed, and chatter-free control inputs.

Figure 15. Comparison of control inputs between fractional-order terminal sliding mode control (FO-TSMC) and model-free
fractional-order nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode (MFF-TSM).
Ahmed et al.
7. Conclusions and future
recommendations
Trajectory tracking model-free control scheme is
developed for the control of the lower-limb robotic
exoskeleton based on TDE with fractional-order non-
singular fast terminal sliding mode control (MFF-
TSM). Precise trajectory tracking performance, fast
finite-time convergence, nonsingularity. and chatter-
free control torque input are obtained using FO
and NFTSM, while unknown dynamics of the exo-
skeleton under the uncertainties and unknown exter-
nal disturbances are controlled via TDE. Later,
stability analysis of the closed-loop system is estab-
lished by Lyapunov theorem analysis. It has been
observed that the performance of the proposed
method (MFF-TSM) is excellent in the position and
velocity tracking simulations. Therefore, to illustrate
the effectiveness of the MFF-TSM, compared simula-
tion results on 2-DOF (one leg) and 4-DOF (two legs)
lower-limb exoskeletons are demonstrated in the pres-
ence of uncertainties and unknown external disturb-
ances. Hence, their corresponding simulation results
show that the developed method, employed on the
lower-limb exoskeleton, has improved performances
in terms of fast finite-time convergence, chatter-free
control input, precise position tracking, and smaller
tracking error.
In this study, unknown dynamics of lower-limb exo-
skeleton in the existence of uncertainties and external
disturbances are considered. Therefore, the future
research work suggests that the developed controller
MFF-TSM can be proposed to design as fault tolerant
control (FTC) in the presence of actuator faults and it
can also be applied on a practical application of an
exoskeleton.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup-
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article: This work was partially supported by the National
Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants
61773212 and 61304077, International Science &
Technology Cooperation Program of China under Grant
2015DFA01710, the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu
Province under Grant BK20170094, the Chinese Ministry of
Education Project of Humanities and Social Sciences under
Grant 13YJCZH171, 11th Jiangsu Province Six talent peaks
of high level talent under Grant 2014_ZBZZ_005 and the
Jiangsu Province Project Blue: young academic leaders
project.
17
Orcid ID
Saim Ahmed http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2302-705X.
Haoping Wang http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1888-1849.
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