Human-robot-interaction control for orthoses with pneumatic soft-actuators--concept and initial trails

The purpose of this paper is to present a concept of human-robot-interaction control for robots with compliant pneumatic soft-actuators which are directly attached to the human body. Backdrivability of this type of actuators is beneficial for comfort and safety and they are well suitable to design rehabilitation robots for training of activities of daily living (ADL). The concept is verified with an application example of sit-to-stand tasks taking conventional treatment in neurology as reference. The focus is on stroke patients with a target group suffering from hemiplegia and paralysis in one half of the body. A 2 DOF exoskeleton robot was used as testbed to implement the control concept for supporting rising based on a master-slave position control such that movements from the fit leg are transferred to the affected leg. Furthermore the wearer of the robot has the possibility to adjust support for stabilizing the knee joint manually. Preliminary results are presented.