LAUSR

The typical power-assisted hip exoskeleton utilizes rotary electrohydraulic actuator to carry out strength augmentation required by many tasks such as running, lifting loads and climbing up. Nevertheless, it is difficult to precisely control it due to the inherent nonlinearity and the large dead time occurring in the output. The presence of large dead time fires undesired fluctuation in the system output. Furthermore, the risk of damaging the mechanical parts of the actuator increases as these high-frequency underdamped oscillations surpass the natural frequency of the system. In addition, system closed-loop performance is degraded and the stability of the system is unenviably affected. In this work, a Sliding Mode Controller enhanced by a Smith predictor (SMC-SP) scheme that counts for the output delay and the inherent parameter nonlinearities is presented. SMC is utilized for its robustness against the uncertainty and nonlinearity of the servo system parameters whereas the Smith predictor alleviates the dead time of the system’s states. Experimental results show smoother response of the proposed scheme regardless of the amount of the existing dead time. The response trajectories of the proposed SMC-SP versus other control methods were compared for a different predefined dead time.