Cartesian Trajectory Tracking of a 7-DOF Exoskeleton Robot Based on Human Inverse Kinematics

• Published in: IEEE transactions on systems, man, and cybernetics. Systems Vol. 49; no. 3; pp. 600 - 611
• Main Authors: Brahmi, Brahim, Saad, Maarouf, Rahman, Mohammad H., Ochoa-Luna, Cristobal
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.03.2019; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Backstepping controller; Control systems design; Degrees of freedom; Elbow; exoskeleton robots; Exoskeletons; Human motion; Inverse kinematics; Kinematics; Lyapunov function; Medical treatment; Nonlinear control; Rehabilitation; robotic rehabilitation; Robots; Robust control; Shoulder; Test procedures; Therapy; Trajectories; Wrist
• ISSN: 2168-2216; 2168-2232
• DOI: 10.1109/TSMC.2017.2695003

Exoskeleton robots have become an important tool to provide rehabilitation therapy to stroke victims because of their ability to allow rehabilitation exercises, ranging from passive to active-assisted movement, for extended time periods. To generate the desired rehabilitation trajectories and ensure an optimal Cartesian solution, we propose a new solution to the inverse kinematics problem, which is compatible with human upper limb movement and is valid for human arm configuration. In addition, in order to provide passive rehabilitation therapy to the upper extremity of disabled individuals, we implement a robust nonlinear control based on the backstepping technique on the 7-degrees-of-freedom ETS-MARSE robot. The controller was designed to reject the user's force caused by the subject's muscular activity. Experimental results validate the stability, robustness, and exactness of the proposed method with the designed tests performed by healthy subjects.