Control of Lower Limb Exoskeletons for Gait Rehabilitation Purposes

Abstract

Mobility deficiency is one of the main impairments for children with Cerebral Palsy (CP). Various approaches and techniques are used for rehabilitation purposes in order to improve the life quality and the autonomy of these young patients. Nowadays, beyond conventional techniques, such as manual stretching and massage, robotic-based gait training therapy is considered as one of the most effective key tools to compensate and rehabilitate functional skills of people with cerebral palsy. In the literature, several works are dealing with different aspects regarding these robotic rehabilitation devices, such as design, optimization, actuation and control. In this chapter, two control schemes based on sliding mode control with integral action are developed. The proposed control solutions have been numerically implemented and tested in different simulation scenarios to show their effectiveness and robustness.