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Novel Design and Control of a Crank-Slider Series Elastic Actuated Knee

Exoskeleton for Compliant Human–Robot Interaction

Article in IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics · January 2022

DOI: 10.1109/TMECH.2022.3204921

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IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS
Novel Design and Control of a Crank-Slider
Series Elastic Actuated Knee Exoskeleton
for Compliant Human–Robot Interaction
Jiyuan Song , Aibin Zhu , Member, IEEE, Yao Tu , Xiaodong Zhang, Member, IEEE,
and Guangzhong Cao , Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—The lower-limb assist exoskeleton plays the
role of torque assiting and compliant tracking for wearers to
perform tasks. Accurate torque generation, backdrivability
performance, low output impedance, and hardware com-
pactness are essential factors for lower-limb exoskeleton to
achieve better compliant physical interaction. This research
studies a crank-slider series elastic actuator (CS-SEA) that
can be used as a compact exoskeleton joint module. The
device has a unique crank slider mechanism, and a set
of linear springs are equipped inside the slider to guar-
antee the nonlinear stiffness of its physical impedance so
that the torque effect can be improved and a high level
of transparency can be achieved. The RBF-based sliding
mode controller is chosen as the output torque controller
of the exoskeleton, and the adaptive neuro-fuzzy sliding
mode control law is designed and its stability is verified.
The precise output force control performance of CS-SEA is
verified by experiments. The actuator is incorporated into a
knee exoskeleton prototype and was worn by the subjects.
The experimental results demonstrate the precision of the
compliant transparent and torque assisting control while
interacting with the human wearer.
Manuscript received 19 December 2021; revised 30 June 2022; ac-
cepted 31 August 2022. Recommended by Technical Editor J. Yoon and
Senior Editor N. G. Tsagarakis. This work was supported in part by the
National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants U1813212
and 52175061, in part by the Shaanxi Provincial Key R&D Program
under Grant 2020GXLH-Y-007, Grants 2021GY-333, 2021GY-286, and
2020GY-207, in part by the Shanxi Provincial Key Research Project
under Grant 2020XXX001, and in part by the Xinjiang Funded by Au-
tonomous Region Major Science and Technology Special Project under
Grant 2021A02002. (Corresponding author: Aibin Zhu.)
Jiyuan Song, Aibin Zhu, Yao Tu, and Xiaodong Zhang are with the
Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of
Intelligent Robots, Key Laboratory of Education Ministry for Modern De-
sign and Rotor-Bearing System, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049,
China (e-mail: jysong@stu.xjtu.edu.cn; abzhu@mail.xjtu.edu.cn;
tu1007909971@stu.xjtu.edu.cn; xdzhang@mail.xjtu.edu.cn).
Guangzhong Cao is with the Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Electro-
magnetic Control, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China (e-
mail: gzcao@szu.edu.cn).
This work involved human subjects or animals in its research. Ap-
proval of all ethical and experimental procedures and protocols was
granted by (Name of Review Board or Committee) (IF PROVIDED under
Application No. xx, and performed in line with the (Name of Specific
Declaration).
This article has supplementary material provided by the au-
thors and color versions of one or more figures available at
https://doi.org/10.1109/TMECH.2022.3204921.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMECH.2022.3204921
1083-4435 © 2022 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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1
Index Terms—Biomimetic actuators and sensors, design
methodology for mechatronics, human–robot interaction,
medical and rehabilitation robotics, series elastic actuator
(SEA).
I. INTRODUCTION
HE exoskeleton are supposed to increase the strength,
T endurance, and speed of the wearer, instead of hindering
the user’s natural movement, which is a manifestation of low
impedance. The exoskeleton should provide a natural, intuitive,
and transparent interface so that the user can perceive it as a
true extension of his or her body rather than what he or she
is driving [1]. Power lower-limb-exoskeleton has a long history
[2], [3], [4], this system needs to provide a large enough torque to
effectively assist the human body to move. In order to meet these
requirements, motors equipped with high reduction ratios gear
sets are widely used. For example, most of the existing wearable
exoskeletons, such as GAREX [5], eLEGS [6], and Rewalk
[7], with rigid transmission mechanisms to provide the wearer
with powerful walking assistance. However, this increases the
mechanical impedance of the system and makes the wearer
uncomfortable.
The knee exoskeleton plays an important role in assisting
individuals in daily activities such as sitting [8], standing [9],
walking [10], etc., because it can provide supportive assistance
or resistance. Knee exoskeleton with the rigid actuator [11],
[12] may cause the poor human–robot interaction. The assistive
robot for patients with incomplete paraplegia and healthy peo-
ple involves physical human–robot interaction (pHRI), so the
design requirements are very unique, such as low impedance
performance and high power density. Unlike patients with
complete paraplegia, patients with incomplete paraplegia and
normal people have the ability to move independently [13]. In
order to minimize discomfort, the robot must not produce any
unexpected resistance to the wearer’s autonomous movement.
Therefore, this requires the actuator of the assistive robot to
have zero mechanical impedance and accurately generate the
required assisting torque, which is usually called “transparent”
in pHRI.
In the past few years, series elastic actuator (SEA) have been
proposed to overcome the shortcomings of rigid geared motors
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2 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS
and fulfill the requirements of actuators for pHRI [7]. SEA
have been widely used in human orthotics and exoskeletons
[14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19]. RoboKnee [1] is a linear
SEA that was designed to help climb stairs and bend knees,
but the original design made the range of motion not meet
the needs of daily exercise. Karavas [20] designed a rotary
SEA in the knee exoskeleton to compliantly assist the human
body to complete the sitting to standing task. Compared with
the rigid actuators, SEA have a lot of advantages in terms of
human–robot interaction, such as passive mechanical energy
storage, low mechanical output impedance, shock resistance,
high force control accuracy, and interaction safety [21]. Also, the
elastic elements in the transmission can separate the load from
the friction and inertia of the transmission mechanism system,
and more importantly, external shocks can also be absorbed [22].
Though quasi-direct-drive (QDD) [23], [24], which has torque
motor and low reduction ratio can also produce the similar torque
effect with SEA, its output torque is relatively smaller than SEA.
The concept of SEA was first proposed by Pratt and
Williamson [21], in which the Hooke’s law can be used to
calculate the output force. Robinson carried out further research
and made achievements in the development of the modeling
and control scheme of SEA [25], [26]. On the basis of the
traditional SEA principle, many researchers have proposed im-
provement schemes. Variable stiffness actuator [27] is with an
added stiffness-adjusting mechanism in the SEA to generate
more precise torque, but the complexity of the mechanism limits
its application in practical scenarios. SEAC [28] is adding a
clutch to the end of the SEA, which improved the transparency
and safety. But it is too large in the axial direction, making it
unconducive to the integration of the exoskeleton. SEA is the
best solution to tradeoff power density and compliant drive with
current technology [24]. In order to minimize the axial size of the
SEA, some transmission mechanisms have been attempted, e.g.,
linkage mechanism [29], worm gear mechanism [30], timing
pulleys, and timing belts [31].
SEA-based robots are in close contact with humans, and it
is critical to control the relative position and interaction force
between robots and humans. Torque control precision is critical
for the safety of exoskeleton wearers but is difficult to achieve by
SEA. The most common way to achieve exoskeleton assisting
and transparency is to use impedance control [32], admittance
control [33], hybrid position force control [34], PID with a
disturbance observer [30], and modified model adaptive con-
troller [35]. In rehabilitation projects, passive control methods
can be used, i.e., the exoskeleton assists human body with a
fixed trajectory. But for healthy people, whose body can walk
actively, the controller of exoskeleton needs to be considered the
wearer’s real-time voluntary movement.
In this article, a crank-slider series elastic actuator (CS-SEA)
is introduced, which is an actuator for exoskeleton that displays
low impedance to the wearer, has a natural interface, and ensures
the wearer’s safety with accurate torque transmission. This
design uses a biased crank-slider mechanism and a set of springs,
in which the crank is used as the output of the actuator. This not
only improves the controllability of the closed-loop torque but
also increases the compactness of the structure. The sliding mode
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controller is selected as the torque controller of the CS-SEA, and
the adaptive neuro-fuzzy sliding mode control law is designed
and its stability is verified. The stiffness characteristics and
output torque control performance of the CS-SEA are tested by
experiments. Finally, the device was worn by subjects in the form
of a knee exoskeleton. The experimental results came from tests
on human subjects, demonstrating the effect of transparency and
the accuracy of assisting torque while interacting with human
wearers.
The rest of this article is organized as follows. Section II
introduces the design requirements, structural design, stiffness
design, hardware description, and controller design. Section III
gives the experimental evaluation results of the CS-SEA. A
discussion and the conclusions are presented in Section IV.
II. MATERIALS AND METHODS
A. Requirements of Actuator
The goal of the knee exoskeleton is to provide the torque
assisting or transparent interaction during different human gait
phases in different movement task. Therefore, exoskeleton needs
to provide precise torque in assisting mode and minimize
human–robot interaction torque in transparent mode to improve
human comfort, i.e., the actuator needs to have controllable
torque [36] and small output impedance to achieve the effect
of compliant interaction.
For the human knee during the gait cycle, it needs to provide
60 N·m continuous torque in the supporting phase, it needs to
provide 40 N·m continuous torque and 70 N·m maximum torque
[37] while in the swing phase, and 99% of the power in the
kinematic signal is kept below 6 Hz [38]. We extend the target
of the torque control bandwidth from 6 to 10 Hz, because the
high torque output of exoskeleton in some phases during the
gait cycle needs to be achieved by the accumulation of high
speed [39]. The actuator needs to meet knee flexion/extension
and external/internal rotation, and can be used as a joint module
for building a reconfigurable wearable lower-limb exoskeleton.
The device should be adjustable, comfortable and light in weight,
and can appropriately transfer torque from its joint center to
the joint center of human knee without generating additional
twisting motion around the thigh or calf. Otherwise, the high-
assisting torque will cause musculoskeletal damage due to the
dislocation. Table Ⅰ lists the goals and performance parameters
of the CS-SEA.
B. Design of the CS-SEA
Fig. 1(a) shows the prototype of the unilateral knee exoskele-
ton worn on the right leg of the human body. The exoskeleton
parts are mainly made of magnesium–aluminum alloy and the
system is light in weight (1.4 kg), this can reduce the limb inertia
[40]. The thigh and calf ends of the actuator are connected to the
rigid brace of the human leg, and the shoulder strap is connected
to the thigh end to bear the weight of the whole exoskeleton. The
CS-SEA is located on the outer side of the human leg, and there
is a passive link parallel to the actuator on the inner side, which
allows the actuator to generate a uniform torque to the knee.
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SONG et al.: NOVEL DESIGN AND CONTROL OF A CRANK-SLIDER SERIES ELASTIC ACTUATED KNEE EXOSKELETON 3

Fig. 1. Overview of the CS-SEA for knee exoskeleton. (a) Lightweight exoskeleton is composed of a compact shoulder belt, leg braces, and
exoskeleton assembly. (b) Detailed display of the CS-SEA. (c) Elastic slider module, there are eight linear springs between the ball nut and the
slider. (d) Self-locking state of the CS-SEA.

The length of the output of the exoskeleton can be adjusted to
subjects from 160 to 185 cm.
The exoskeleton joint module totally have 3 degrees of free-
dom: flexion/extension of knee, internal/external rotation of
thigh, and elongation/contraction of calf as shown in Fig. 1(b).
For the flexion/extension movement, it is driven by the CS-SEA
mechanism. A 150-watt dc motor (RE40, Maxon, Switzerland)
drives a ball screw after two timing pulleys transmission. The
ball screw was chosen due to its efficiency and compact size,
which helps to reduce lateral protrusion of the actuator. As shown
in Fig. 1(c), a set of linear springs are preloaded and installed
between the ball nut and the slider. The slider can slide on the
linear guide, which is parallel to the ball screw to ensure that
the ball screw only receives axial thrust. The link bar is hinged
between the slider connecter and the rotating block. It is worth
mentioning that the central axis of the thigh and shank does
not pass through the center point of the output joint, there is
an offset (ΔR) between the center of the joint and the axis of
the leg [see Fig. 1(d)]. This allows the exoskeleton joint to have
a self-locking effect in the support phase (output joint angle
is close to 0°) [41], [42], which can avoid the transmission
mechanism from bearing a large load.
Two passive degrees of freedom located at the ends of the
thigh and shank respectively, as the floating mechanism of the
exoskeleton. The effect of adding a rotation pair and a linear
motion pair as a self-aligning mechanism of the exoskeleton
joint at the adapter has been confirmed [43]. At the end of the
thigh adaptor, there is a disc elastic mechanism that contains 4
linear springs in a circular array. When the thigh adapter of the
exoskeleton is fixed to the thigh of the human body, the exoskele-
ton can realize internal and external rotation movements. This
is used to adjust the parallelism between the central axis of the
exoskeleton joint and the central axis of the human knee. And
there is a linear gas spring inside the calf adapter, and two linear
bearings parallel to the linear gas spring. When the calf adapter
of the exoskeleton is fixed to the calf of the human body, the
exoskeleton can move in the direction of the calf. As a suspension
system, this can achieve the adjustment effect of the alignment
of the joint center.
C. Stiffness Design and Perception of Elastic
Deformation
The elastic element in the SEA is particularly important
for the output torque. Some composite materials were used as
elastomers in SEA, such as glass fiber [44], [45] and carbon fiber
[46]. Obviously, the fiber material is of high energy density, but
it has low shear stress. So the joint gap may gradually become
larger with being used, which may reduce the accuracy of the per-
ception of interaction force [29]. To ensure stable performance
and the precision of repeated use, springs are widely used in
the SEA [1], [21], [30]. The torsion spring [30] can be directly
arranged in the rotation center of the joint, but suitable elastic
properties need to be customized, and it may increase the axial
size of the actuator. Here, 8 standardized linear springs are used
in the CS-SEA, which are parallel to the guide rail between
the ball nut and the slider, and 4 springs on each side of the
ball nut. The reason for choosing multiple springs instead of a
single spring is that the overall space occupied by the elastic
element can be reduced. High-strength compression flat wire
mold spring (TL/SWL, China) is selected, and the stiffness of
a single spring is 36.6 N/mm. The output torque of the actuator
can be calculated from the springs deformation data, which can
be measured by the motor encoder and the knee joint encoder,
the series elastic mechanism is shown in Fig. 2(a).
The displacement relationship between the output joint θ and
the slider xs can be obtained from the crank-slider transmission
[see Fig. 2(d) and (e)], which is shown as follows:
R2 + x2s + e2 − L2 e
θo = arccos  + arctan (1)
2
2R xs + e 2 x s

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4 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS
Fig. 2. Transmission of CS-SEA. (a) Series elastic mechanism in the
CS-SEA. (b) Linear transmission mechanism, including motor, timing
pulleys, screw, and nut. (c) Linear Springs. (d) Crank-slider mechanism.
(e) Math relating of CS-SEA. The brown rectangle represents the ball
nut. The blue rectangle represents the slider, which is connected to the
rotating block (L) through the link bar (R). The green represents the
linear springs.
where L, R, and e are the constant value parameters of the
mechanism. θo is the knee joint angle corresponding to the slider
at zero interaction force, i.e., xn = xs .
In Fig. 2(b), the displacement relationship between the nut
and the motor is shown as follows:
n1 · P · θm
xn = (2)
2π · n2
where n1 : n2 = 1 : 2.5 is the transmission radius of two timing
pulleys, P = 2 mm is the lead of the screw, θm (θmotor ) can be
obtained from the motor encoder.
According to the principle of virtual work in (3), the stiffness
can be expressed as (4). And J is the speed Jacobian mapping
from slider input to crank output, as shown in (5)
T · δθ = Fk · δx
Kθ · δθ = ks · δx · δJ
dx (e − R sin θ)
J= = −R sin θ − 
dθ
L2 − (e − R sin θ)2
where T is the output troque of the CS-SEA. Fk is the force
between the ball nut and the slider, which can be calculated
by Hooke’s law. Kθ is the equivalent output stiffness of the
CS-SEA. ks is the stiffness of the springs [see Fig. 2(c)].
So the output stiffness can be expressed as follows:
Kθ = ks (J + J˙ · δx) = ks [J 2 + J˙ · (xs − xn )]
2
The output torque of the CS-SEA is
τmeas = Kθ (θJoint − θo )
where θJoint is the output of the joint, it can be obtained from
the joint encoder, which is driven by a gear set (1:3).
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Fig. 3. Electronic hardware system of the CS-SEA.
D. Electrical System
CS-SEA is equipped with a 150-watt brushed motor driver
(ESCON 50/5), which can provide encoder and motor current
data feedback to the control system. The miniature digital signal
processor (STM32F103ZET6) has high speed, easy wireless
communication, analog input (interface with dynamic torque
sensor for spring stiffness test), and serial peripheral interface
capabilities. The on-board computer has a loop frequency of
1 kHz, reads data from the encoder counter through the se-
rial interface, sends the demand current to the motor driver
through the duty cycle of the pulse width modulation signal
(2000 Hz), and reads data from the motor encoder (HEDL5540,
Maxon, Sachseln, Switzerland) and the joint center encoder
(QY1503-CDZ5E, China). Data of the two encoders can monitor
the deformation of the spring, with a resolution ratio of 2000
lines. The CS-SEA controller communicates with the high-level
control system running on a laptop through the LAN bus. The
microcomputer, motor driver, and brushed motor are powered
by a lithium-ion battery (24 V, 2200 mAh). The system structure
is shown in Fig. 3.
E. Torque Controller Design
1) Sliding Mode Controller Formulation: The interaction
model between the CS-SEA knee exoskeleton and human body
(3) is shown in Fig. 4(a), the interaction torque can be calculated by
(7). Here, the linear springs between the nut and the slider can
(4) be regarded as a virtual torsion spring between the crank and the
output end in the actuator, as shown in Fig. 4(b) and (c).
(5) The dynamics of the single degree-of-freedom knee exoskele-
ton are given as follows:
T = Ie θ̈Joint + bθ̇Joint + g(θJoint ) + τd (8)
Ta = Ia θ̈a + T (9)
where Ie is the inertial parameter of the actuator joint, b is the
viscous damping of the joint, g(θJoint ) the gravity torque of leg,
(6)
Ia is the inertial parameter of the motor, τd is the disturbance
from the interactive object. Ta is the output torque of the actuator.
T is the interaction torque between actuator and leg, and it is
(7)
equal to the τmeas in (7).
The torque controller of the CS-SEA is shown in Fig. 4(d).
When (7), (8), and (9) are combined, the torque controller can
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SONG et al.: NOVEL DESIGN AND CONTROL OF A CRANK-SLIDER SERIES ELASTIC ACTUATED KNEE EXOSKELETON
Fig. 4. Model of transmission and the controller of CS-SEA. (a) Inter-
action model of human and the CS-SEA. (b) Actual transmission model
of the CS-SEA, the linear spring is between the nut and the slider. (c)
Equivalent interaction model of the CS-SEA, the virtual torsion spring is
between the crank and the exoskeleton output link. (d) Sliding mode
controller, RBF neural network is used to approximate the uncertain
term.
be rewritten as follows:
Ta = Kθ−1 Ia T̈ + (1 + η)T − bη θ̇o − ηg(θo ) − η τd
where η = IIae denotes the inertial difference between the actu-
ator output joint and motor shaft.
The goal of designing the sliding mode controller is to ensure
that actual torque profile T of the actuator can accurately track
the command torque profile Td . The trajectory tracking error is
assumed as (11), and the sliding surface is designed as (12)
e(t) = Td (t) − T (t)
r(t) = ė(t) + Λe(t)
where the Λ is a positive parameter, r(t) is the slope of sliding
surface. Then,
Kθ−1 Ia ṙ = Kθ−1 Ia (T̈d + Λė) − Kθ−1 Ia T̈
= − Ta + f − bη θ̇o − ηg(θo ) − η τd
where f = K −1 J(T̈d + Λė) + (1 + η)T is the uncertainty term
in the exoskeleton dynamics model. Here, the uncertain term f
of the model is unknown, radial basis function neural network
(RBF NN) is used to approximate it.
In the RBF NN, taking x = [eT , ėT , TdT , ṪdT , T̈dT ] as the input,
and Gaussian function as the membership function, so the RBF
NN algorithm can be denoted as follows:

hi = exp(−x − ci 2 /2b2i )
(14)
f (x) = WT h(x) + ε
where i = 1, 2, 3, . . . , m, and m is the number of neurons in the
hidden layer of the RBF NN, ci and bi are the center value
and standardization constant of Gaussian function of the ith
neuron in the hidden layer respectively, W is the connection
weight matrix from hidden layer to output layer, and ε is the
approximation error.
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5
Due to the existence of approximation error, the actual output
of the neural network can be set as follows:
f̂ (x) = ŴT h(x) (15)
where Ŵ is the actual weight matrix of the RBF NN when
approaching f , h(x)is the hidden layer basis vector of the RBF
NN.
The sliding mode control law is designed as follows:
Ta = ŴT h(x) − bη θ̇o − ηg(θo ) − η τd + Cr + ν (16)
where C is the control parameters of sliding mode controller, r
is the designed sliding surface, and ν is the robust term of the
controller to overcome the system disturbance.
Considering the approximation error ε of RBFNN and the
disturbance term τd in the actual exoskeleton control, the robust
term ν is designed as
ν = −(εN + bd )sgn(r) (17)
where εN ≥ f − f̂  is the maximum permissible error of the
RBF NN approximation, and bd ≥ bη θ̇o + ηg(θo ) + η τd  is
the maximum disturbance of the system.
2) Proof of System Stability: Before experiments, the stabil-
ity of the system should be proved. The Lyapunov function of
(10) the control system is defined as follows:
1 2 −1 1
L= r Kθ Ia + tr(W̃T F−1 W̃) (18)
2 2
where F is a positive definite matrix, W̃ the weight error matrix
of RBF NN in approximation, and tr(X) traces matrix X. The
result of tr(X)is a constant value.
The first derivative of Lyapunov function shown in (22) is
obtained as follows:
(11) 1
L̇ = Kθ−1 Ia ṙ − r2 K̇θ−2 Ia . (19)
(12) 2
Equations (17), (20), and (23) can be combined as
L̇ = −r2 C + r(ε − bη θ̇o − ηg(θo ) − η τd + ν). (20)
L̇ ≤ 0 due to the fact that
r(ε − bη θ̇o − ηg(θo ) − η τd + ν)
(13)
= r(ε − bη θ̇o − ηg(θo ) − η τd ) − r(εN + bd ) ≤ 0. (21)
According to Lyapunov’s stability discrimination theorem,
L̇(r) < 0 when r = 0; L̇(r) = 0 when r = 0. L̇(r) is asymptot-
ically stable at the origin since it is negative definite; r and e is
uniformly bounded by Lyapunov stability theory since L̇ ≤ 0.
In addition, ė is uniformly bounded since r = ė + Λe. There-
fore, according to Barbalat’ s lemma, r → 0 when t → ∞and
L̇(r) = 0. Thus e → 0 and ė → 0, which verifies the stability of
the control system.
III. EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS
A. Actuator Characterization
After the stability of the control system is proved, the follow-
ing goals need to be tested by experiments.
1) To characterize the output stiffness of the CS-SEA.
2) To test the backdrivability of the CE-SEA.
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6 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS
Fig. 5. Displacement relationship between the slider and the output
joint without spring deformation.
Fig. 6. CS-SEA test bench. (a) Stiffness calibration test bench. (b)
Torque control performance test bench. With the thigh adaptor of CS-
SEA fixed on the test bench, one end of the dynamic torque sensor
(JN-DN, China) is connected to the output of the CS-SEA, the other end
of which is connected to the handle bar or the magnetic powder brake.
3) To evaluate the torque controller performance.
4) To verify the desired torque of the CS-SEA can be gen-
erated with sufficient frequency bandwidth.
Experiment I: First, to obtain the kinematic relationship of
the crank and slider in the state of zero interaction. With the
shell of CS-SEA fixed on the test bench, slowly rotate the motor
within the range to ensure that the springs are not deformed. The
displacement of the nut can be calculated from the motor encoder
by (2), and the displacement of the crank can be calculated from
the joint encoder. Record the position data of two encoders and
establish the zero torque calibration curve. The experimental
displacement relationship between the crank and the slider is
the red line shown in Fig. 5, the data of the blue dotted line is
obtained from (1).
The fitting function of the displacement relationship between
the crank and the slider of zero interaction is in (22), The θo in
(7) is modified by the experimental result θr in (22)
θr = −0.00665x2s + 2.50013xs + 2.02085.
Second, to characterize the output stiffness of the CS-SEA.
The experiment bench is shown in Fig. 6(a). Torque in 10
increments between the maximum continuous flexion and ex-
tension torques is applied on the handle bar, and the data from
dynamic torque sensor is recorded. This is a repeat test at
intervals of 10° from 0° to 110°, and 3 tests for each angle.
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Fig. 7. Stiffness of the actuator. (a) Stiffness relationship of different
joint angles. (b) Stiffness of the output joint of CS-SEA.
The relationship among the angle, deflection, and torque of the
output joint is shown in Fig. 7(a). The output stiffness of CS-SEA
in Fig. 7(b) is calculated from Fig. 7(a).
The approximation of function fitting in MATLAB is used
to calculate the relationship between joint stiffness and output
angle, which is shown as follows:
kr = 3.66 × 10−4 · θ3 − 0.08θ2 + 3.88θ + 194.58. (23)
The output stiffness Kθ of the CS-SEA in (7) is modified by
the experimental result kr in (23). It can be seen that the stiffness
of the joint is nonlinear, which first increases and then decreases
with the displacement of the output joint. When the joint angle
is 0◦ , the stiffness of the joint is 390 N · m/rad; when 120◦ , the
stiffness of the joint is the minimum at about 220 N · m/rad;
when about 30◦ , the stiffness of the joint is the maximum at
about 440 N · m/rad. This is because the nonlinear relationship
of the crank-slider mechanism, the output stiffness varies with
(22)
the output angle.
Experiment II: To test the backdrivability of the CS-SEA.
With the shell of CS-SEA fixed on the test bench and the
controller is OFF, the output shaft of the CS-SEA was manually
rotated between 10° and 60° at frequencies between 0.5 and
2 Hz. The data from both encoders are recorded and used to
calculate the interaction torque. The measured output angle and
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SONG et al.: NOVEL DESIGN AND CONTROL OF A CRANK-SLIDER SERIES ELASTIC ACTUATED KNEE EXOSKELETON 7

TABLE I
ACTUATOR DESIGN GOALS AND PERFORMANCE

Fig. 8. Backdrivability test of the CS-SEA in unpowered condition.

backdrive torque are presented in Fig. 8. The results show that

the backdrive torque of the CS-SEA is 5.05 N·m.
Experiment III: To evaluate the torque control performance
by the step response and torque tracking of chirp pulses with a
frequency ranging from 1 to 10 Hz. The test bench for CS-SEA
is shown in Fig. 6(b). The magnetic powder brake is able to
lock the output shaft of the CS-SEA at different angles. The step
response of 5, 15, 25, 35, and 45 N·m, the torque tracking result
of the chirp signal are shown in Fig. 9(a). The step response time
includes the delay of the spring deformation. The first-order
approximation is given by BW = 0.32/tr . The CS-SEA can
quickly track the torque required for stepping. Due to the flexible
elements in the CS-SEA transmission, the mechanical vibration
generated can be effectively suppressed. Fig. 9(b) is a torque
tracking example of RBF-based sliding mode control with Td =
20 sin(6πt), and Fig. 9(c) shows the tracking error result, the
stable error reaches an approximate value of ±0.78 N·m. The
torque signal tracking results shows that the proposed sliding
mode controller can accurately generate the desired torque. The
root mean square (RMS) error between the desired torque and
the actual output torque based on the springs and encoders is
0.303 N·m.
Experiment IV: To evaluate the torque control bandwidth of
the CS-SEA, the chirp torque with a tracking frequency ranging Fig. 9. Actuator characterization experiment data. (a) Step response
of 5, 15, 25, 35, and 45 N·m step input. (b) Torque tracking example
from 0.1 to 50 Hz and an amplitude of 40 N·m was controlled. with fixed output position to illustrate the fidelity of torque tracking. (c)
The test bench is shown in Fig. 6(b). The fast Fourier transform Actuator bandwidth between torque and expected torque, measured for
was used to determine the amplitude and phase shift between the expected torque amplitude of 40 N·m.
the desired torque and the actual torque [47]. Within the 100°
motion range of the actuator (starting at 10°, with an interval
of 25°), by specifying the sinusoidal desired torque within a B. Preliminary Human Subject Tests
certain frequency range, a bandwidth of 40 N·m is recorded at Based on the proposed CS-SEA, the thigh adapter and the
each angle. As shown in Fig. 9(d), the bandwidth of the CS-SEA shank adapter are fixed to the braces of the human leg. As shown
varies at different output angles. The torque control bandwidths in Fig. 1(a), the weight of the exoskeleton is carried by the shoul-
at 10°, 35°, 60°, 85°, and 110° are approximately 14, 17, 15, 13, der strap connecting the thigh of the exoskeleton, which can
and 12 Hz, respectively. reduce the impact of the inertia of the exoskeleton on the human

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8 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS
TABLE II
COMPARISON OF PORTABLE KNEE EXOSKELETONS
Fig. 10. Transparent mode experiment. The desired output torque of
the CS-SEA is set to zero. (a) Squatting exercise. (b) Stepping on the
spot. (c) Walking at a constant speed at a speed of 0.8 m/s. (d) Running
at a speed of 2 m/s. (e) Going up the stairs. (f) Going down the stairs.
body. Six healthy subjects wear knee exoskeleton for testing
to evaluate the ability of the transparent mode and assistance
mode respectively and to ensure the effective performance of
the CS-SEA while interacting with the wearer.
This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board
of Xi’an Jiaotong University and informed written consent was
obtained from all subjects. The age of the subjects ranged from
26 to 32 years, the height ranged from 165 to 178 cm, and the
weight ranged from 52 to 74 kg.
1) Case I. Transparency Experiment: When the controller is
turned on with the desired torque set to zero, the knee exoskele-
ton is worn by subjects in exercise experiments to test the effect
of the transparent mode of the CS-SEA. Six subjects wearing the
knee exoskeleton were tested in six exercise modes: squatting-
up-and-down, stepping, walking (0.8 m/s), running (2 m/s),
upstairs-going and downstairs-going, as shown in Fig. 10. The
metronome is used to ensure that the subjects’ movement speed
in the six movement modes. The exercise of each mode was
tested for 5 min, and a piece of stable data was taken. The
displacement data of the ball nut and the slider collected by the
encoders were recorded, and the interaction torque is calculated
by the springs deformation.
As shown in Fig. 11, the maximum interaction torque of
the squatting, stepping, walking (0.8 m/s), running (2 m/s),
upstairs, and downstairs are 0.8, 0.6, 0.6, 1.1, 0.8, and 0.6 N·m,
respectively.
2) Case II. Torque Assistance Experiment: In practical ap-
plications, the exoskeleton needs to provide assistance torque
for human movement. In this experiment, the actuator torque is
specified as a function of the joint angle, which provides time
flexibility without amplifying the error of human–robot inter-
action torque, and continuously contributes a certain amount
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of mechanical work to human. The torque-angle relationship
used is a standardized curve based on subjects normal gait,
which is calculated by inverse dynamics and standardized by the
subject’s weight, as shown in Fig. 12(b). The curve is scaled for
different assistance levels. The expected value of the assisting
torque corresponds to each angle in the range of motion, and
the torque value is interpolated to be continuous. Subjects were
equipped with the exoskeleton and performed the walking test
with a speed of 1.2 m/s and with the assistance of 20%, 40%,
and 60%. And subjects exercised continuously for 5 min at each
assistance level.
The experimental scene is shown in Fig. 12(a). The subjects
started the experiment from a standing state on a treadmill before
starting to walk with assisted torque. The displacement data
of the ball nut and the slider collected by the encoders were
recorded, and the interaction torque is calculated by the springs
deformation. The three-dimensional motion capture system (Vi-
con Vero2.2-Nexus2.0) was used to capture human leg motion
data. Data was only collected in the active part of each trial,
where the knee joint speed is 4°/s or higher. Taking the encoder
data of the output joint as the basis for gait phase, the subjects
walked in accordance with the assistant torque provided by the
exoskeleton during the gait process.
Fig. 13 shows the standardized desired torque and measured
torque for all torque assisting tests. The torque RMS errors of
these three experiments were 0.572, 0.945, and 1.314 N·m for
20%, 40%, and 60% assistance levels, respectively.
IV. DISCUSSIONS
This work characterized the benefits of the CS-SEA through
modeling and experiments, and verified the effectiveness of the
transparent mode and assistive mode with worn on the human
body. The proposed design and control method result in a high
torque density exoskeleton with suitable control bandwidth and
high torque tracking accuracy.
A. Performance Advantages of the CS-SEA
The results of the characterization test (as shown in Table II)
show that the torque density of CS-SEA is superior to other
type of actuators [11], [12], [20], [23], [24]. The results of
the backdrivability indicated that the CS-SEA exhibited a low
backdrive torque (∼5.05 N·m). The mechanical impedance of
CS-SEA is better than the conventional actuation (17 N·m)
[11] and state-of-the-art SEA (6.10 N·m) [48], but it is slightly
insufficient compared with the advanced QDD-based actuator
(0.22 N·m) [24]. Our CS-SEA has a bandwidth that covers the
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SONG et al.: NOVEL DESIGN AND CONTROL OF A CRANK-SLIDER SERIES ELASTIC ACTUATED KNEE EXOSKELETON 9

Fig. 11. Interaction torque in the six kinds of motions. Exoskeleton joint angle corresponding to motor displacement θo at zero interaction torque,
actual exoskeleton joint angle θjoint . The interaction torque is calculated by the springs deformation.

variant of normal human walking movements: In Fig. 7(b), The

Stiffness (220–440 N·m/rad) of the CS-SEA is higher than hu-
man knee (0–176 N·m/rad) [24], which is able to track reference
stiffness accurately with the exoskeleton. The bandwidth of the
CS-SEA (12–17 Hz) is higher than human lower-limb movement
frequency (less than 10.5 Hz) [24], which can meet the need for
human walking with the exoskeleton. Based on the proposed
RBF-Based sliding mode controller, CS-SEA implements a
small torque tracking error (RMSE is 0.303 N·m, 1.51% of the
peak torque).

B. Preliminary Human Tests Response and

Fig. 12. Torque assisted control experiment. (a) Subject conducts the
experiment on the treadmill. (b) Torque curve for force control. 100%
torque assistance is calculated by inverse dynamics to calculate the joint
torque required by the knee joint in each phase of the human gait.
Interpretations
We carried out the experiments in transparent mode and
assisting mode of human wearing CS-SEA exoskeleton.
In the transparent mode of the six exercises, the interaction
torque of stepping, walking (0.8 m/s) and downstairs is the
lowest (less than 0.6 N·m), and of running (2 m/s) is the highest
(1.1 N·m). The transparency of the exoskeleton is effective,
which can reduce the restraint and improve the safety of the
human body in the task. But the interaction torque will increase
with the speed of human movement.
In the assisting mode, the torque RMS errors of the 20%, 40%,
and 60% assistance levels were 0.572, 0.945, and 1.314 N·m,
respectively, (7.15%, 6.25%, and 5.97% of the peak torque). The
results indicate that CS-SEA can accurately track the desired
torque when the subject is walking. But the interaction torque
increases with the desired moment.

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10
Fig. 13. Proportional torque assistance experiment. The actual interaction force is measured according to the deformation of the springs in
CS-SEA, which is calculated by the information of the two encoders.
C. Limitations of the Study
Here, we note some limitations of our study. First, the mis-
alignment of the exoskeleton and the human knee joint, which
is a common issue for rigid exoskeletons. There are two passive
degrees of freedom to alleviate this problem, and this scheme
is demonstrated in [43]. Second, the single-joint exoskeleton
maybe increase the inertia of the human leg, but our CS-SEA is
the lightest (1.4 kg) compared to the state-of-the-art single-knee
exoskeleton [11], [12], [20], [23], [24]. And most of the weight
of our exoskeleton is carried by the shoulder strap. Furthermore,
determining a standard exoskeleton torque curve is challenging.
But it is worth investigating, which is simple and effective for
validating the assisting mode of the exoskeleton in this study.
D. Future Work
In future work, we will try to align the stiffness variation
properties of CS-SEA and the human bio-stiffness in different
motion states to optimize the interaction torque to a minimum
in the transparent mode. For the assisting mode, it may be
worthwhile to use the human-in-the-loop method [49]. We are
investigating phase of human gait recognition [50], which will
be used to study and evaluate the adaptability of exoskeletons to
different terrains.
V. CONCLUSION
This article presents a CS-SEA actuation consisting of a
motor and the elastic crank-slider transmission mechanism. It
can produce high torque (45 N·m nominal torque, 102 N·m peak
torque), and at a weight of 1.4 kg, it achieves a high torque
density (32.14 N·m/kg). Based on this actuation paradigm, a
lightweight unilateral portable knee exoskeleton is developed,
which performs high backdrivability (5.05 N·m), suitable stiff-
ness (220–440 N·m/rad), and bandwidth (12–17 Hz), it demon-
strated mechanical versatility. With the proposed RBF-based
sliding mode controller, CS-SEA produced the small torque
tracking error. The exoskeleton is effective in transparent mode
and assisting mode, it can accurately track the desired torque
to ensure the compliant human–robot interaction, and may be
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IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS
used to reduce the restraint on the human body to improve the
flexibility of human movement.
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Art. no. 104087.
Jiyuan Song received the Bachelor’s degree in
mechanical engineering from Zhengzhou Uni-
versity, Zhengzhou, China, in 2017. He is cur-
rently working toward the Ph.D. degree with
Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China.
He was a Visiting Scientist of General Motors
R&D Center in Michigan in 2019. His research
interests include multisource sensor informa-
tion fusion for human motion recognition, lower
limb assisted exoskeleton, bionic actuator, and
highly dynamic underwater robot thruster.
Aibin Zhu (Member, IEEE) received the Mas-
ter’s degree in mechanical engineering and the
Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from
Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, in 2002
and 2006, respectively.
He is currently a Professor with Xi’an Jiaotong
University. His research interests include bio
electromechanical integration, intelligent robot,
innovative design and bionic design.
 This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.

12 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS

Yao Tu received the Bachelor’s degree in me- Guangzhong Cao (Senior Member, IEEE) re-
chanical engineering, in 2017, from Xi’an Jiao- ceived the Master’s degree in mechanical and
tong University, Xi’an, China, where he is cur- electronic engineering and the Ph.D. degree
rently working toward the Doctoral degree. in mechanical and electronic engineering from
His research interests include exoskeleton Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, in 1992
design, robot control, and sEMG signal process- and 1996, respectively.
ing. He is currently a Professor with Shenzhen
University, Shenzhen, China. His research inter-
ests include intelligent control, robot control, in-
dustrial robot and rehabilitation robot, as well as
design, drive and control of motor, and magnetic
Xiaodong Zhang (Member, IEEE) received the suspension system.
Master’s degree in mechanical engineering and
the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering
from Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, in
1992 and 1996, respectively.
He is currently a Professor with Xi’an Jiao-
tong University. His research interests include
the theory, method and application technology
of optical fiber sensing, as well as the theory,
method and intelligent robot technology of bio
electromechanical perception.

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