A New Control Approach for a Robotic Walking Support System in Adapting User Characteristics

This paper proposes a new control approach for a robotic walking support system to adapt a user's controlling characteristic. The control approach will be implemented by changing the kinematic structure of the robotic walking support system based on a variable center of rotation. This new control approach aims to help users who have difficulties in controlling their walking support system. In this study, we have a training stage to evaluate and adapt user's controlling characteristics. This will be implemented by allowing the user to follow some training paths. In the event a large path error occurs, a learning algorithm will vary the center of rotation of the support system until the user can successfully follow the training path. The relationship between the user intent in the form of applied force/torque and the new center of rotation will be taken by considering several training paths. This relationship will be used in actual control of the robotic walking support system. Experimentation and evaluation are presented to show the validity of the proposed control algorithm