Design, Modelling and Control of an Active Weight-Bearing Knee Exoskeleton with a Series Elastic Actuator

Knee disorders are a fundamental problem in modern society. For this reason, the design of medical devices, such as an orthosis to provide rehabilitation, is of great importance. However, no significant effort has been made to design and model a compliant, weight-bearing knee exoskeleton that is suitable for the day-to-day activities but also sports. This paper presents a device capable of reducing the load experienced by the impaired knee. Its series elastic actuator was modeled to aid in the selection of the elastic stiffness (150 kN/m) and test the controller which displayed adequate tracking performance with a maximum provided torque of about 6 Nm. On the other hand, the actuator should be optimized in the future to meet the high torque operation demanded by the simulated biped model.