An Adaptive Sliding Mode Variable Admittance Control Method for Lower Limb Rehabilitation Exoskeleton Robot

As passive rehabilitation training with fixed trajectory ignores the active participation of patients, in order to increase the active participation of patients and improve the effect of rehabilitation training, this paper proposes an innovative adaptive sliding mode variable admittance (ASMVA) controller for the Lower Limb Rehabilitation Exoskeleton Robot. The ASMVA controller consists of an outer loop with variable admittance controller and an inner loop with an adaptive sliding mode controller. It estimates the wearer’s active muscle strength and movement intention by judging the deviation between the actual and standard interaction force of the wearer’s leg and the exoskeleton, thereby adaptively changing admittance controller parameters to alter training intensity. Three healthy volunteers engaged in further experimental studies, including trajectory tracking experiments with no admittance, fixed admittance, and variable admittance adjustment. The experimental results show that the proposed ASMVA control scheme has high control accuracy. Besides, the ASMVA can not only increase training intensity according to the active muscle strength of the patient during positive movement intention (so as to increase active participation of the patient), but also increase the amount of trajectory adjustment during negative movement intention to ensure the safety of the patient.