Novel Design and Control of a Crank-Slider Series Elastic Actuated Knee Exoskeleton for Compliant Human–Robot Interaction

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 compactness 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 guarantee 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.