Fuzzy Hybrid Force-Position Control for the Robotic Arm of an Upper Limb Rehabilitation Robot Powered by Pneumatic Muscles

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to design a hybrid force-position controller using fuzzy logic (FL) for the robotic arm of a 9 degrees of freedom (DOF) upper limb wearable exoskeleton rehabilitation robot. The robot is designed and built in our lab for assisting in the rehabilitation of patients post-stroke. The robotic arm of the rehabilitation robot is driven by pneumatic muscles (PM) and its dynamic performance is very complex. Fuzzy logic (FL) control techniques are applied to the robotic arm and the results show that FL controller shows better performances than that of the conventional PI controller in hybrid force-position control of the specified robotic arm of the rehabilitation robot.