A powered knee exoskeleton for gait rehabilitation

Research in robotic gait rehabilitation still faces many challenges regarding ankle assistance, body weight support and human-robot interaction.

This paper reports on the development, focusing on these challenges, of a gait rehabilitation exoskeleton powered by pleated pneumatic artificial muscles. The first prototype is intended as a platform for the evaluation of design and control concepts.

The mechanical design procedure is explained with the emphasis on optimization. A proxy-based sliding mode control approach is proposed and evaluated by means of simulation.

Simulation results indicate good tracking performance and safe system behavior, encouraging experimental validation on the prototype.