Study on the Control Method of Knee Joint Human-Exoskeleton Interactive System

The advantages of exoskeletons based on the Bowden cable include being lightweight and flexible, thus being convenient in assisting humans. However, the performance of an exoskeleton is limited by the structure and human-exoskeleton interaction, which is analyzed from the established mathematical model of the human-exoskeleton system. In order to improve the auxiliary accuracy, corresponding control methods are proposed. The disturbance observer is designed to compensate for disturbances and parameter perturbations in the inner loop. The human-exoskeleton interaction feedforward model is integrated into the admittance control, which overcomes the limitation of the force loading caused by the friction of the Bowden cable and the change in stiffness of the human-exoskeleton interaction. Furthermore, an angle prediction method using the encoder as the signal source is designed to reduce the disturbance of the force loading caused by human motion. Finally, the effectiveness of the design method proposed in this paper is verified through experiments.

Automated summary

The advantages of Bowden cable-based exoskeletons lie in their lightweight and flexible nature, making them convenient for human assistance. However, their performance is restricted by the exoskeleton's structure and human-exoskeleton interaction. In this study, control methods including disturbance observer, human-exoskeleton interaction feedforward model, and angle prediction using encoder are proposed to compensate for disturbances and limitations, thus improving the accuracy of assistance.