TY - JOUR
T1 - Design and Experimental Verification of a Hip Exoskeleton Based on Human–Machine Dynamics for Walking Assistance
AU - Wang, Xiangyang
AU - Guo, Sheng
AU - Qu, Baojian
AU - Bai, Shaoping
N1 - Funding Information:
This workwas supported in part by theNationalNatural Science Foundation of China under Grant 52275004 and Grant 61903218, and in part by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant 2021YJS135.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 IEEE.
PY - 2023/2
Y1 - 2023/2
N2 - High motion compatibility with the human body is essential for lower limb exoskeletons. However, in most exoskeletons, internal/external rotational degrees of freedom are not provided, which makes accurate alignment between the biological and mechanical joints difficult to achieve. To solve this problem, a novel hip exoskeleton with a parallel structure is developed in this article. The unique parallel structure eliminates the misalignment problem and enables walking free of restrictions. On the other hand, this requires a coordinated control among actuations within the parallel exoskeleton structure. In this light, a model-based controller is proposed in this article. The controller is based on a human–machine integrated dynamic model and can generate coordinated force control references that could increase the closed-loop system's sensitivity to its wearer's movements. The controller requires only kinematic information from the wearer, but not interaction force data that most existing exoskeletons require in their control design, which saves spaces and makes the system compact for use. Experiments were conducted to demonstrate the kinematic compatibility and assistive performance of the proposed hip exoskeleton.
AB - High motion compatibility with the human body is essential for lower limb exoskeletons. However, in most exoskeletons, internal/external rotational degrees of freedom are not provided, which makes accurate alignment between the biological and mechanical joints difficult to achieve. To solve this problem, a novel hip exoskeleton with a parallel structure is developed in this article. The unique parallel structure eliminates the misalignment problem and enables walking free of restrictions. On the other hand, this requires a coordinated control among actuations within the parallel exoskeleton structure. In this light, a model-based controller is proposed in this article. The controller is based on a human–machine integrated dynamic model and can generate coordinated force control references that could increase the closed-loop system's sensitivity to its wearer's movements. The controller requires only kinematic information from the wearer, but not interaction force data that most existing exoskeletons require in their control design, which saves spaces and makes the system compact for use. Experiments were conducted to demonstrate the kinematic compatibility and assistive performance of the proposed hip exoskeleton.
KW - Dynamics
KW - hip exoskeleton
KW - parallel mechanism
KW - walking assistance
KW - wearable robot
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85142792396&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/THMS.2022.3217971
DO - 10.1109/THMS.2022.3217971
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85142792396
SN - 2168-2305
VL - 53
SP - 85
EP - 97
JO - IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems
JF - IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems
IS - 1
ER -