Optimal Stiffness Tuning for a Lower Body Exoskeleton with Spring-Supported Passive Joints

Mehmet C. Yildirim, Polat Sendur, Ahmed Fahmy Soliman, Barkan Ugurlu

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper presents a framework to optimally tune the stiffness values of spring-supported passive joints that are included in lower body exoskeletons. First, a dynamic model of a combined human-exoskeleton system was created in MSC.ADAMS software. Second, a gradient-descent based algorithm was used to find the optimum value to minimize the ZMP for a range of ankle stiffness values. In order to corroborate the proposed method, simulation experiments were conducted by considering three cases in which different body mass and heights were assigned to the combined human-exoskeleton system. The simulation results indicate that the proposed methodology is effective in order to find the optimum ankle stiffness for the combined human-exoskeleton systems, resulting in reductions in ZMP variations and therefore increasing the balancing ability. As a consequence, it may be possible to reduce the number of active joints in exoskeletons that aim crutch-free 3-D walking motion support.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationBIOROB 2018 - 7th IEEE International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics
PublisherIEEE Computer Society
Pages531-536
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9781538681831
DOIs
StatePublished - 9 Oct 2018
Externally publishedYes
Event7th IEEE RAS/EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics, BIOROB 2018 - Enschede, Netherlands
Duration: 26 Aug 201829 Aug 2018

Publication series

NameProceedings of the IEEE RAS and EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics
Volume2018-August
ISSN (Print)2155-1774

Conference

Conference7th IEEE RAS/EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics, BIOROB 2018
Country/TerritoryNetherlands
CityEnschede
Period26/08/1829/08/18

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