Preliminary results of force/torque sensorless impedance control for Walkbot

Abstract

Robotic gait rehabilitation has been captured considerable attentions as an important training technique for walking impaired patients over the past few decades. In this paper, we successfully applied an impedance control for patient-cooperative strategy of gait rehabilitation without force/torque sensors for a commercial gait rehabilitation orthosis. The control method utilizes reaction torque observer (ROB) for estimating patient-robot interaction torque. Experiments were performed on five healthy subjects are given to demonstrate the feasibility of the applied method.