Design and Control of Pneumatically-Powered Gait Orthosis

The article presented the modeling and control of a pneumatically-powered gait orthosis (PPGO). According to the mechanism of exoskeleton structure of pneumatic gait training device and pneumatic proportional system, an appropriate nonlinear process model was derived. In order to provide assistance as needed for supporting patient's locomotion, a predictive fuzzy control (PFC) method was proposed based on the nonlinear dynamic model. This control algorithm is to evaluate the variables of PPGO based on fuzzy inference mechanism. The experiment of locomotion has been done to verify the effectiveness of proposed controller on the experimental setup of a pneumatically-powered gait orthosis.