Open AccessDesign and control of hybrid actuation lower limb exoskeleton
Author(s) -
Hipólito Aguilar-Sierra,
Wen Yu,
Sergio Salazar,
Ricardo Aguilar López
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
advances in mechanical engineering/advances in mechanical engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.318
H-Index - 40
eISSN - 1687-8140
pISSN - 1687-8132
DOI - 10.1177/1687814015590988
Subject(s) - exoskeleton , pneumatic artificial muscles , actuator , flexibility (engineering) , artificial muscle , harmonic drive , pneumatic actuator , computer science , control theory (sociology) , position (finance) , control engineering , engineering , simulation , control (management) , artificial intelligence , mathematics , statistics , finance , economics
In this article, two types of actuators are applied for a lower limb exoskeleton. They are DC motors with the harmonic drive and the pneumatic artificial muscles. This combination takes advantages of both the harmonic drive and the pneumatic artificial muscle. It provides both high accuracy position control and high ratio of strength and weight. The shortcomings of the two actuators are overcome by the hybrid actuation, for example, low control accuracy and modeling difficult of pneumatic artificial muscle, compactness, and structural flexibility of DC motors. The design and modeling processes are discussed to show the proposed exoskeleton can increase the strength of human lower limbs. Experiments and analysis of the exoskeleton are given to evaluate the effectiveness of the design and modeling