Abstract
In order to help elder people who suffer from lower back pain caused by lower spine degeneration, a novel kind of robot-assisted exoskeleton spine was designed. It was mainly applied to lift their upper bodies for assisting movements and reducing backache during walking. The aim of this system was to control an elastically actuated motor to provide extra torques on a user’s hip by following the gaits in locomotion. And the whole exoskeletal spine mechanism (exo-spine) has been built of flexible material and fixed on an artificial pelvis. Thanks to the use of a cable-pulley-spring structure the torque applied to the hip is greatly amplified and would eventually affect the deformation of exo-spine, so that an auxiliary force is generated on the lower back to support user’s spine during the movements. Although the overall robot-assisted system was easily imaged and designed, its intrinsic complexity needed careful analysis, because the actuating process becomes highly nonlinear and noisy when compliant movements are demanded to mimic human performances in locomotion. Therefore, some appropriate assumptions were introduced, and to enhance the robustness of system, an adaptive controller was designed by applying Lyapunov Stability Theory. Finally, the correctness and feasibility of our proposed system were tested and estimated through a set of experimental simulations.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Miura K., Yoshida E., Kobayashi Y. et al.: Humanoid Robot as An Evaluator of Assistive Devices. In: 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 679–685 (2013).
Taal S. and Sankai Y., Exoskeletal Spine and Shoulders for Full Body Exoskeleton in Health Care. In: 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) pp. 2217–2222 (2011).
Li X. P., Noritsugu T., Takaiwa M et al.: Design of Wearable Power Assist Wear for Low Back Support Using Pneumatic Actuators. In: International Journal of Automation Technology (IJAT), Vol. 7 No.2, pp. 228–236 (2013).
Hara H. and Sankai Y.: HAL Equipped with Passive Mechanism. In: IEEE/SICE International Symposium, System Integration (SII), pp. 1–6 (2011).
Astrom K. and Wittenmark B.: Adaptive Control, (2nd ed.). Dover Publications Inc, NY, (2008).
Konz R J., Fatone S., Stine R. L. et al.: A Kinematic Model to Assess Spinal Motion during Walking. In: Spine, Vol. 31, No. 24, pp 898–906 (2006).
Gard S A., Miff S C. and Kuo A D.: Comparison of Kinematic and Kinetic Methods for Computing the Vertical Motion of the Body Center of Mass during Walking. In: Human Movement Science, No.22, pp. 597–610 (2004).
Zedka M, Prochazka A, Knight B. et al.: Voluntary and Reflex Control of Human Back Muscles during Induced Pain. In: Journal of Physiology, Vol. 520, No. 2, pp. 591604 (1999).
Hastings G. and Book W.: A Linear Dynamic Model for Flexible Robotic Manipulators. In: IEEE Control System Magazine, Vol. 7, pp. 61–64 (1987).
Duka A., Oltean S. and Dulau M.: Model Reference Adaptive vs. Learning Control for the Inverted Pendulum: A Comparative Case Study. In: Control Engineering and Applied Informatics (CEAL), Vol. 9, pp. 67–75 (2007).
Sugar T. G., Hollander K. W. and Hitt J. K.: Walking with Springs. In: The International Society for Optical Engineering, SPIE, Vol. 7976, No. 797602, pp. 1–15 (2011).
Bortoletto R., Sartori M., He F. B. and Pagello E.: Simulating an Elastic Bipedal Robot Based on Musculoskeletal Modeling In: Living Machines Conf. pp. 26-37 (2012)
Malki H. A., Misir D., Feigenspan D. et al.: Fuzzy PID Control of a Flexible-Joint Robot Arm with Uncertainties from Time-Varying Loads. In: IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 371–378 (1997).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
He, F., Zhang, H., Bortoletto, R., Liang, Y., Pagello, E. (2016). Adaptive Design and Control of a Robot-Assisted Lower Back Exoskeletal Spine System. In: Menegatti, E., Michael, N., Berns, K., Yamaguchi, H. (eds) Intelligent Autonomous Systems 13. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 302. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08338-4_108
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08338-4_108
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-08337-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-08338-4
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)