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About

Ratiba Fellag is a robotics and control systems researcher whose work sits at the intersection of advanced control theory and assistive medical robotics. She has made significant contributions to the development of sliding mode control strategies for rehabilitation exoskeleton robots and pneumatic artificial muscle-driven manipulators — two of the most promising platforms in assistive and medical robotics today. Her most influential work, "Sliding Mode Control of a 5-DOF Upper Limb Exoskeleton Robot" (2017, 20 citations), established robust position control frameworks for exoskeletons designed to restore mobility in physically impaired patients. Building on this foundation, Fellag has progressively advanced the complexity and sophistication of these controllers, introducing homogeneous finite-time higher-order sliding mode schemes and continuous third-order finite-time approaches that better handle the unknown and variable dynamics inherent in human-robot interaction during rehabilitation. Fellag has also addressed the challenging nonlinear dynamics of pneumatic artificial muscles, developing both discrete and adaptive sliding mode controllers that improve reliability and performance in soft robotic manipulators. Across her portfolio, her work demonstrates a clear commitment to making intelligent, robust control accessible in safety-critical rehabilitation settings, with her research collectively accumulating over 30 citations and influencing ongoing developments in assistive robotics engineering.