Adaptive sliding manifold slope via grasped object stiffness detection

with a prosthetic hand

Ricardo Andrecioli
a
, Erik D. Engeberg
a,b,
a
Mechanical Engineering Department, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325, United States
b
Biomedical Engineering Department, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325, United States
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 26 April 2013
Accepted 13 October 2013
Available online 6 November 2013
Keywords:
Sliding mode control
Prosthetic hand
Amputee
Adaptive control
Distributed parameter systems
a b s t r a c t
Upper limb amputees have expressed the desire for their prosthetic hands to better adapt to the param-
eters of different grasped objects. In response to this need, an adaptive sliding mode controller (ASMC) is
developed that has a variable-slope manifold which is dependent upon the stiffness of the grasped object.
The ASMC is experimentally compared to a sliding mode controller (SMC) which has a constant manifold
slope over a wide range of grasped object stiffness, ranging from an empty hand to a steel bar. Experi-
mental results indicate that both controllers have satisfactory percent overshoot characteristics; how-
ever, the ASMC has signicantly less absolute error for all experiments performed with eight different
levels of grasped object stiffness.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
With the exception of several research applications [13],
amputees cannot directly feel the parameters of objects grasped
by their prosthetic hands [410]. The absence of proprioceptive
feedback leads to frustrating situations where grasped objects are
inadvertently crushed or dropped [1114]. For this reason, several
commercially available hands have autonomous grasped object
slip prevention algorithms such as the SensorHand Speed [15]
and the bebionic hand (RSLSteeper, Leeds, UK). Other commercially
available prosthetic hands like the i-Limb [16] and the Motion Con-
trol Hand [17] are operated open loop, without force or position
feedback. However, there have been a number of control tech-
niques presented for prosthetic hands such as proportional control
[18], position control with and without slip prevention [19], force
control [20], backstepping control [21], parallel force-position
control [22], and sliding mode control [17].
Despite several notable accomplishments to help upper limb
amputees [19,23], the widespread clinical adoption of advanced
techniques is slow due to a number of factors like the cost of
implementation. For a new technique to be clinically acceptable
for a large number of amputees, it must be economic, robust, and
simple to control because most prosthetic hands are operated with
electromyogram (EMG) signals which are inherently noisy [8,24].
This is the motivation of this paper, which is in response to sev-
eral recent surveys of upper limb amputees who have indicated a
desire for their prostheses to have an improved capacity to adapt
to different parameters of grasped objects and to have a more
life-like function [5,9]. Human hands clearly have a controllable
and variable stiffness [25] achieved through a coactivation of
antagonistic muscle groups [26]. However, prosthetic hands have
a constant stiffness unless a different mechanism [27] or feedback
control method is used [28]. Thus, the stiffness of the prosthetic
hand-grasped object system can change but it is largely dependent
upon the object that is grasped. People also have a stiffness-depen-
dent weighting of force and position feedback during typical
manipulation tasks [29]. Thus, this paper will explore the use of
an adaptive control law that is based on the detected stiffness of
the grasped object to improve upon the aforementioned problems
listed by amputees [30]. One improvement in this paper over prior
work [20,30] is that the adaptive controller will be implemented
within a hybrid force-position sliding mode controller with a man-
ifold that has a variable slope which is dependent upon the stiff-
ness of the grasped object. A second improvement in this paper
over prior work is that the stiffness detection algorithm for the
ASMC has been extended to function with linear and nonlinear sys-
tem stiffness. Bench top experiments will be performed with the
Motion Control Hand to compare the ASMC to a standard SMC [17].
2. Equipment
2.1. Variable-stiffness manipulandum
A manipulandum has been constructed for grasping experi-
ments. The manipulandum has a slot in which linear springs can
0957-4158/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mechatronics.2013.10.006

Corresponding author. Address: The University of Akron, ASEC, Room 101,

Akron, OH 44325-3903, United States. Tel.: +1 330 972 8651.
E-mail address: engeberg@uakron.edu (E.D. Engeberg).
Mechatronics 23 (2013) 11711179
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
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j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ mechat r oni cs
be placed (Fig. 1a). There is also a magnet that can be engaged to
create a nonlinear stiffness effect (Fig. 1b). Three different linear
compression springs were used in this research: K
1
= 0.52 N/mm,
K
2
= 5.78 N/mm and K
3
= 11.38 N/mm. Nonlinear stiffness settings
correspond to when the magnet is engaged in parallel with the
three linear springs and are referred to as K
1M
, K
2M
, and K
3M
,
respectively. When the magnet is engaged, the manipulandum be-
haves similar to a brittle object like an egg, where the stiffness is
initially very high and then decreases after signicant displace-
ment occurs (Fig. 1c). An A1321 Hall effect position sensor is
mounted to the base of the manipulandum and was calibrated to
indicate the distance between the two plates of the manipulan-
dum. Two LSP-10 load cells (Transducer Techniques, Temecula,
USA) were used to measure the applied force.
2.2. The Motion Control Hand
The Motion Control Hand (Fig. 2) has a single degree of freedom
with the thumb coupled to the forengers via a four-bar linkage
system. Strain gauges have been afxed to the thumb and are used
to determine the normal force (F
N
) when grasping objects. The dis-
tance between the thumb and forengers is dened as the position
of the hand. The position is measured with an A1321 Hall effect
sensor.
The state equations for the hand are given by
_ x
0
x
1
_ x
1
x
2
_ x
2

K
I
x
1

B
I
x
2

n
I
E
D
I
:
1
The states x
0
, x
1
, and x
2
are the integral of position, the position,
and the velocity respectively. D is the sum of disturbances pro-
duced by nonlinearities such as Coulomb friction and backlash. E
is the voltage input to the motor and n is a torque constant that in-
cludes the armature resistance and relation between motor angle
and hand position. I, B, and K are the effective inertia, damping,
and stiffness of the motor and four bar linkage mechanism. The
stiffness of the system is essentially constant when there is no ob-
ject in grasp; however, the system stiffness can change substan-
tially depending upon the object that is grasped.
3. Hybrid force-position sliding mode controller
3.1. Hybrid force-position control
To facilitate both the control of position or force for amputees,
the technique of hybrid force-position control is implemented
[31]. With this method, an outer force control loop is used to create
a force error signal which is used as the desired position input to an
inner sliding mode position control loop (Fig. 3). The desired posi-
tion is then calculated as
x
D
G
F
F
D
F
N
; 2
where F
D
is the desired force, F
N
is the measured normal force and
G
F
is a constant gain.
3.2. Sliding mode position control
To facilitate the SMC design, let the position error be dened as
e = x
D
x
1
. Thus, the manifold for the SMC is given by
S G
P
e G
I
_
e dt G
D
_ e; 3
where G
P
, G
D
and G
I
are the proportional, derivative and integral
gains, respectively. The sliding mode control law can then be writ-
ten as
E CsatS; 4
C is a constant that is based on an upper bound estimate on the
torques acting upon the motor of the prosthesis. See [32] for a
thorough discussion of the stability of sliding mode control for a
broad class of systems.
Fig. 1. (a) Variable stiffness manipulandum. There is a slot in which different springs can be placed to alter the stiffness of the manipulandum. There is also a magnet that can
be disengaged or engaged to create a nonlinear stiffness effect. When the magnet is engaged, the manipulandum acts like a brittle object that has a high stiffness until
signicant displacement occurs. Then, the effect of the magnet diminishes and the stiffness of the linear spring dominates. There are two load cells to measure the applied
force as well as a Hall effect position sensor. (b) The manipulandum after it has been compressed. (c) The nonlinear stiffness of the manipulandum with linear spring K
3
and
the magnet engaged (K
3M
).
Fig. 2. The Motion Control Hand has a single degree of freedom with the thumb
connected to the forengers via a four bar linkage mechanism. There are strain
gauges on the thumb to measure the applied force and a Hall effect sensor is used to
measure the position of the hand.
1172 R. Andrecioli, E.D. Engeberg / Mechatronics 23 (2013) 11711179
While sliding mode control is guaranteed to be stable within
certain bounds [32], chatter can be induced. Thus, a saturation
function (sat) is used in place of the signum function. However,
there will always be a tradeoff for controllers that cannot compen-
sate for the variable stiffness of the system. With a low manifold
slope, there is minimal steady state error with low system stiff-
ness; however, the error will increase as the system stiffness in-
creases. On the other hand, with a high-slope manifold, error
dynamics are good with high stiffness objects at the expense of
excessive overshoot and oscillations with low stiffness objects.
Thus, an adaptive control solution will be explored that makes
use of a variable-slope manifold that is adaptively dependent upon
the detected stiffness of the system which includes the stiffness of
the grasped object.
4. Variable-slope sliding mode control via grasped object
stiffness detection
As previously mentioned, the stiffness of the grasped object can
strongly impact the dynamics of the prosthetic hand system (1).
This can result in excessive overshoot or poor tracking unless the
stiffness of the system is considered by the control law. Thus, an
adaptive control solution will be explored that uses a variable-
slope sliding manifold to optimize the system response regardless
of the stiffness of the object that is grasped (Fig. 4). To that end, the
sliding manifold (3) will be modied so that the slope of the man-
ifold is dependent upon the detected prosthetic hand system stiff-
ness that can vary substantially when different objects are
grasped:
SK G
P
Ke G
I
K
_
e dt G
D
K_ e: 5
Here, G
P
(K), G
D
(K), and G
I
(K) are the proportional, derivative,
and integral gains that are adaptively dependent upon the detected
stiffness of the system.
4.1. Method of system stiffness detection
Many objects people frequently manipulate can have a variable
and nonlinear stiffness. Eggs, for example, initially have a very high
stiffness until they are cracked at which time the stiffness rapidly
decreases. Toaccount for objects withvariable or nonlinear stiffness,
this paper uses an algorithm for stiffness calculation that can pro-
vide an instantaneous estimate of the stiffness of the systeminclud-
ing the stiffness of the grasped object which can, in general, vary
with displacement. This algorithm approximates the relationship:
K
@F
N
@x
1
: 6
The stiffness calculation algorithm works by approximating the
forcedisplacement function F
N
(x
1
) into linear segments of 1 mm
displacement intervals (note x
i
= x
i1
+ 1 mm). For two given points
P
i
=(F
N
(x
1i
), x
1i
) and P
i1
=(F
N
(x
1i1
), x
1i1
), the instantaneous system
stiffness approximation for the interval from P
i1
to P
i
is calculated
as
K
i

F
N
x
1i
F
N
x
1i1

x
1i
x
1i1
: 7
Fig. 5a presents
1
an example of the stiffness being calculated dur-
ing one grasp with the nonlinear manipulandum stiffness setting
K
1M
. In this example, the grasping cycle resulted in 15 displacement
intervals (P
1
through P
15
); the red curve represents the linear inter-
polation between points P
i
and P
i+1
. The green signal is the approx-
imated stiffness (right y-axis) for the same period. A rst order
low pass lter was next used to smooth the instantaneous estimate
of the system stiffness:
K
30K
i
s 30
: 8
The time constant of the pole in(8) was determinedby examiningthe
frequency response of the system. Acut off frequency of 30 rad/s was
chosen because it is slightly higher than the bandwidth of the pros-
thetic hand, so it does not appreciably slowor destabilize the dynam-
ics of the system. This also reduces the impact of position and force
sensor noise in (7) to efciently lter the stiffness estimate in (8).
The comparison between the measured stiffness (6) and the cal-
culated stiffness after signal ltering (8) for the nonlinear stiffness
condition K
1M
showed a close correlation between the two signals
(Fig. 5b). The calculated stiffness was obtained via (8) whereas the
measured system stiffness was calculated using (6): data for grasp-
Fig. 3. Control diagram for the hybrid force-position sliding mode controller. The error from an outer force control loop is used to specify the desired position of the inner
sliding mode position controller.
Fig. 4. Control diagram for the adaptive hybrid force-position sliding mode controller. The slope of the sliding manifold is adaptively dependent upon the detected stiffness of
the system which changes when different objects are grasped.
1
For interpretation of color in Figs. 5 and 10, the reader is referred to the web
version of this article.
R. Andrecioli, E.D. Engeberg / Mechatronics 23 (2013) 11711179 1173
ing cycles were collected and the force-displacement curve was
approximated with a high order polynomial ofine, which was
subsequently differentiated with respect to displacement.
It is important to mention that people cannot detect the stiff-
ness of the environment while in a static posture [33]; it is neces-
sary to rst apply a force to cause deformation before ascertaining
the stiffness. The same is true with prosthetic hands: as the
grasped object is squeezed, the approximation of the system stiff-
ness improves. This is clear from Fig. 5b, where the calculated sys-
tem stiffness (8) lags behind the measured system stiffness (6)
slightly because it is rst necessary to displace the grasped object
before a stiffness estimate can be obtained. In this paper, a 1 mm
sliding window was used in which to estimate the system stiffness
to reduce the likelihood that sensor noise or vibrations of the hand
would produce noise in the stiffness estimate.
It is also important to emphasize that the stiffness detection
algorithm (8) provides an estimate of the stiffness of the overall
prosthetic hand-grasped object system, not of the grasped object
itself. However, unlike human hands, prosthetic hands like the Mo-
tion Control Hand have a constant stiffness. This means that vari-
ations in the overall system stiffness are purely dependent upon
the objects that are grasped as well as the slope of the sliding man-
ifold, as will be subsequently discussed.
4.2. Stiffness-dependent sliding manifold slope
The relationship between sliding manifold slope and system
stiffness in (9) will be used for this study. For cohesion of notation,
G
n
will be used to refer to the gains of the system where the sub-
script n distinguishes between the integral (G
I
), derivative (G
D
) and
proportional (G
P
) gains:
G
n
K
G
nmax
; if K > K
max
a
n
K b
n
; if K
min
< K < K
max
G
nmin
; if K < K
min
_

_
: 9
Here, the values for a
n
and b
n
are determined by dening the desired
manifold slope for a stiff (K
max
) and a compliant (K
min
) object and
then solving the set of equations for a
n
and b
n
. G
n
is initially low
and is increased as needed according to the system stiffness. Thus,
it is clear that the adaptive sliding manifold (5) has a slope that is
piece-wise linearly dependent upon the stiffness of the system. The
slope of the manifold saturates at the highest and lowest values cor-
responding to the maximumand minimumstiffnesses of the system.
Hence, the gain terms in (9) are always positive and bounded even
though the system stiffness could be negative (Figs. 1c, and 5).
The resulting process for choosing the upper andlower bounds of
sliding manifold slopes based on the stiffest and most compliant ob-
jects that are to be grasped is an intuitive method that could be clin-
icallyimplemented. The lackof robust andintuitive control methods
has traditionallybeenanimpediment tothe eldof upper limbpros-
thetics, so this technique is clinically relevant and could be readily
implemented on commercially available prosthetic hands.
4.3. Reaching phase dynamics of the adaptive sliding mode controller
In general, the system states (1) will not initially reside on the
sliding manifold (5), which means that the system error, e, will ini-
tially be nonzero. Thus, the initial goal of sliding mode controllers
is to drive the error states to the sliding manifold so that the error
can eventually be eliminated; the same is true of the ASMC. Thus,
the reaching phase of the sliding mode controller occurs as the sys-
tem states are driven to the sliding manifold. To that end, the
ASMC must enforce the constraint
SK
_
SK 6 bjSKj; 10
where b is a positive constant. To that end, the rate of change of S
must be driven to zero:
_
SK G
P
K_ e G
D
Ke G
I
Ke 0: 11
Hence, from (11) and (1), it is clear that
_
SK G
P
K_ e G
D
K x
D

K
I
x
1

B
I
x
2

n
I
E
D
I
_ _
G
I
Ke 0
12
Fig. 5. (a) The nonlinear forcedisplacement curve while grasping K
1M
is shown. Here, the instantaneous estimate of the system stiffness is calculated using (7) during 1 mm
sliding intervals of displacement. The force units of Newtons are on the vertical axis on the left side of this gure while the scale for the stiffness (N/mm) is measured on the
right side. (b) The instantaneous estimate of the system stiffness is ltered (8) and compared to the measured system stiffness from (6). There is a close correlation between
the two signals. However, the estimate of the system stiffness (8) lags behind the measured stiffness (6) because it is impossible to estimate the stiffness of the system in real
time without rst displacing the grasped object.
1174 R. Andrecioli, E.D. Engeberg / Mechatronics 23 (2013) 11711179
Therefore, if the magnitude of the input, E, is designed to be
greater than
C > n
1
D I
G
P
K_ e G
I
Ke
G
D
K
Ix
D
Kx
1
Bx
2
_ _

; 13
the system states can be driven to the sliding manifold. From this
expression, it is clear that C will be the same for the SMC and ASMC
controllers unless an object is in grasp. Once an object is grasped, C
will change with the ASMC due to the stiffness-dependent manifold
slope. However, it is clear that the second derivative of the desired
position, x
D
, in (12) is likely to be very noisy since it would contain
the second derivative of the EMG input from the amputee operator
[24]. Hence, it is good practice for sliding mode control of prosthetic
hands to use an upper bound estimate on C that is based on the sys-
tem model. In practical applications, this is done by equating C to
the maximum possible voltage that the motor of the prosthetic
hand can allow. This assures maximal robustness to externally ap-
plied disturbance torques.
4.4. Sliding phase dynamics of the adaptive sliding mode controller
The sliding phase occurs once the system error states are driven
to the sliding manifold. Once on the sliding manifold, they can be
maintained there and driven to zero through the control law
E CsatG
P
Ke G
I
K
_
e dt G
D
K_ e: 14
The saturation function is again used to reduce the likelihood of
chatter that can frequently occur with mechanical systems that use
the signum function. Since the stiffness-dependent terms within
the sliding manifold are all positive and bounded (9), stability of
this control law can be readily demonstrated in the same manner
as the SMC [32,34].
However, examination of the control law of the ASMC (14) re-
veals interesting system dynamics depending upon the object that
is grasped. For example, the system error states could follow a non-
linear trajectory while on the sliding manifold as they are driven to
zeroif the object ingrasphas a nonlinear or variable stiffness (Fig. 6).
Additionally, because the saturation function is used in the control
law to avoid chatter, the error states are not maintained perfectly
upon the sliding manifold. Therefore, rapid changes in the stiffness
of the system could change the slope of the sliding manifold suf-
ciently so that the error states will have to reenter a reaching phase
once again before being driven to the sliding manifold.
In a practical setting, this could be very useful to improve the
system response over a broad range of grasped objects. With high
stiffness objects, the gains would increase to improve the tracking
and with low stiffness objects, the gain decreases to prevent exces-
sive overshoot and oscillations. Furthermore, if a brittle object like
an egg was grasped and then slightly cracked, the stiffness of the
object would initially be very high and then drop rapidly. In this
scenario, the slope of the manifold would initially be very high
and then decrease rapidly, which would have the effect of reducing
the grip force applied on the object after it cracked. There is a clin-
ical need for an improved capacity to delicately handle different
objects [28] and to adapt to different object parameters as is evi-
denced by several recent surveys of upper limb amputees
[6,9,35], so this is an important design consideration.
5. Experimental methods
Both the SMC (4) and ASMC (14) prosthetic hand controllers
were implemented in Simulink using the realtime Windows target
kernel and a control loop frequency of 1 kHz. Extensive step, ramp,
and sine wave tracking bench top experiments were performed
with a wide range of linear and nonlinear manipulandum stiffness
to ensure that the ASMC functions appropriately in a well regu-
lated environment [30]. This is very important before conducting
experiments with amputees.
To that end, bench top experiments were performed with eight
different stiffnesses in total. Six different manipulandum stiffness
settings were used: K
1
, K
2
, K
3
, K
1M
, K
2M
, K
3M
. Additionally, a steel
bar was grasped and the situation where there was no object in
grasp was also explored. To perform these experiments consis-
tently, the Motion Control Hand was mounted to an aluminum x-
ture and the manipulandum was grasped with both controllers and
the aforementioned six different stiffness settings (Fig. 7). In the
same manner, the steel bar was grasped and the situation without
an object in grasp was also evaluated. The ngertips from a com-
mercially available prosthetic hand cosmetic glove were placed
on the Motion Control Hand to ensure a comparable object interac-
tion situation that is encountered by amputees daily. However, the
other portions of the cosmetic glove were removed to accommo-
date the Hall effect sensor that was mounted to the hand to pro-
vide the necessary position feedback for the sliding mode
controllers and the stiffness detection algorithm.
The constant manifold slope for the SMC was chosen to be the
highest slope possible to enable good tracking and to avoid over-
shoot and oscillations over a broad range of grasping scenarios
ranging from an empty hand to a steel bar. Further increases of
the manifold slope resulted in oscillations and overshoot with
low system stiffness whereas decreasing the slope yielded deterio-
rating steady state error. Thus, the manifold slope used with the
SMC corresponded to the maximum constant slope capable of
being used without oscillations over the full range of grasped
objects explored in this paper. This same slope of the SMC manifold
(with corresponding gains G
nmin
) was also the default slope for the
ASMC until an object was grasped, at which time the slope in-
creased in accordance with the detected system stiffness (9). The
maximum slope for the ASMC with a stiff object was determined
in a similar manner: gains G
P
, G
I
, and G
D
were systematically
increased to the maximum values (G
nmax
) before oscillations and
signicant overshoot occurred while grasping the steel bar, which
corresponded to the maximum system stiffness (K
max
). K
min
was
chosen to be zero. Thus, the minimum and maximum ASMC man-
ifold slopes and corresponding system stiffnesses were specied,
which enabled the calculation of the stiffness-dependent gain
functions listed in (9). The gain on the outer force control loop
(G
F
) and C were maintained the same for both controllers.
Fig. 6. The slope of the manifold of the adaptive sliding mode controller varies
depending upon the stiffness of the object that is grasped. The slope is initially low
and then increased with increasing stiffness. If the grasped object has a variable or
nonlinear stiffness, the error states will follow a nonlinear trajectory to the origin as
the slope of the sliding manifold will change with the different stiffness.
R. Andrecioli, E.D. Engeberg / Mechatronics 23 (2013) 11711179 1175
With each of the eight stiffness settings, both controllers
tracked a desired trajectory comprised of steps, a ramp, and
sinusoids with two different frequencies. Sixteen repetitions were
performed with both controllers at each of the eight stiffness
settings. This number was chosen based on the estimated standard
deviation from prior experiments [30]: a sample size of sixteen
repetitions yielded a power of 0.95 considering a difference of
0.5% or greater in the responses of each controller.
A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed on the
controller performance metrics: percent overshoot (%OS) and the
percentage of steady state error (%E
SS
) during the step portions of
the trajectory. The absolute error (%E
ABS
) throughout the duration
of the experiments was also calculated. The two factors used in
the ANOVA are the eight aforementioned levels of stiffness and
the two prosthetic hand controllers used.
6. Results
Illustrative force and position tracking data from the SMC with
no object in grasp showed excellent tracking performance during
the step portions of the trajectory (Fig. 8). The percent overshoot
during the step portions was also minimal. The gear train applied
a torque on the linkage system that caused a small amount of
strain, which is why approximately 1 N of force was detected by
the strain gauges even though there was no object in grasp. The
amplitude of oscillation during the two different frequencies of
sinusoids remained fairly constant. The ASMC also had excellent
position tracking with no object in grasp (Fig. 9). Since the detected
system stiffness was at the minimal case with no object in grasp,
the gains remained nearly constant.
However, when an object was in grasp with the SMC, the ampli-
tude of oscillation during the higher frequency sinusoidal portion
of the input was attenuated (Fig. 10, blue lines). With stiffness
K
3
, the position was affected by the increased force from the
grasped object as one would expect with a hybrid force-position
control law (2). But, the inclusion of force feedback is very impor-
tant with high stiffness objects to prevent excessive force and chat-
ter that would occur with a position controller.
However, when the same object was grasped (K
3
) with the
ASMC, the slope of the manifold increased as the system gains in-
creased because of the stiffness of the manipulandum (Fig. 10, red
lines). The effect of the increased gains during the step inputs with
Fig. 7. The experimental set up where the Motion Control Hand was mounted to an
aluminum base. The manipulandum was placed in grasp for the six different
stiffness settings: K
1
, K
2
, K
3
, K
1M
, K
2M
, and K
3M
. Experiments were also performed in
this manner with no object in grasp as well as with a steel bar. Fingertips from a
commercially available prosthetic hand cosmetic glove were placed on the hand to
simulate a similar frictional situation encountered daily by amputees. However, the
remainder of the glove was removed to facilitate the placement of the Hall effect
position sensor needed for the sliding mode controllers and the stiffness detection
algorithm.
Fig. 8. Illustrative tracking data of the SMC with no object in grasp. This is the data
from all 16 trials averaged together.
Fig. 9. Sample data showing the ASMC with no object in grasp. The feedback gains
and the manifold slope remain nearly constant at the default level.
1176 R. Andrecioli, E.D. Engeberg / Mechatronics 23 (2013) 11711179
the ASMC noticeably improved the steady state error. The
improvement with the ASMC during the sinusoidal portions was
also substantial because the amplitude of oscillation was not sig-
nicantly attenuated during the higher frequency portion as oc-
curred with the SMC. Additionally, the applied force with the
SMC was roughly half the amplitude of the force applied while
using the ASMC during the sinusoidal portion of the trajectory.
Data from the ASMC while grasping K
3
also showed the effect of
the increasing system stiffness on the slope of the manifold: G
P
,
G
I
, and G
D
all increase with the increasing system stiffness (9)
which has the effect of improving the tracking capabilities of the
hand, particularly during the sinusoidal portions of the experi-
ments (Fig. 10). The overshoot with the ASMC during the step por-
tions of the trajectory was also very low.
Data from the nonlinear stiffness condition K
2M
with the ASMC
showed that the system gains rapidly increased and then de-
creased as the hand was displaced through the nonlinear force eld
due to the magnet on the manipulandum (Fig. 11). This had the ef-
fect of improving the tracking of the system when the stiffness was
high without excessive overshoot when the stiffness was low. Note
that only positive stiffness values are displayed, which had no im-
pact on the system gains since they saturated at the minimum
allowable values before the system stiffness became negative in
accordance with (9). The motor control law (E) fully saturated at
the maximum and minimum allowable values according to (14).
Both controllers were satisfactory in regard to the %OS during
the step portions of the trajectory; each controller had less than
1% overshoot at each stiffness setting (Fig. 12a). The two-way
ANOVA showed a statistically signicant difference between the
performance of the two controllers (p < 0.01) and a difference in
regard to the stiffness setting of the manipulandum (p < 0.05).
The interaction between these two factors was also signicant
(p < 0.01). There was a modest improvement of the steady state
error (%E
SS
) during the step portions of the experiments with the
ASMC (Fig. 12b) which was statistically signicant between
the controllers and also the different levels of stiffness (p < 0.01).
The interaction between these factors was also signicant since
there was less differences between the two controllers steady
state errors with low levels of stiffness in comparison to higher
levels of stiffness (Fig. 12b).
With respect to the %E
ABS
, the ASMC had less error with each of
the eight stiffness settings (Fig. 12c). This corroborates the previ-
ous observation that the impact of the ASMC during the sinusoidal
portions of the trajectory was more substantial than during the
steady state portions of the step inputs. The difference between
the two controllers was statistically signicant (p < 0.01) and the
effect of the system stiffness was also signicant (p = 0.01).
Fig. 10. Illustrative tracking data of the SMC with the spring stiffness K
3
(blue
lines). Note that the amplitude of oscillation during the higher frequency sinusoidal
portion of the experiment is attenuated due to the increased system stiffness with
the manipulandum in grasp. Sample data showing the ASMC tracking the desired
trajectory with K
3
is also presented (red lines). The feedback gains vary relative to
the detected system stiffness. As the system stiffness increases, the gains increase to
improve the tracking capabilities of the ASMC relative to the SMC. Note that the
system response with the ASMC is not as signicantly attenuated with the higher
frequency of sinusoidal oscillation, as occurred with the SMC. This is the data from
all 16 trials averaged together.
Fig. 11. Sample data showing the relevant signals from the ASMC while tracking
the desired position trajectory with nonlinear stiffness K
2M
. The abrupt changes in
the force signal in comparison to those shown in Figs. 810 are the result of the
nonlinear stiffness. Because of this, the gains change rapidly to improve the
tracking. The voltage control law (E) fully saturates at the maximum and minimum
permissible values of 8 V.
R. Andrecioli, E.D. Engeberg / Mechatronics 23 (2013) 11711179 1177
However, the interaction between these two factors was not signif-
icant (p > 0.05). Data in Fig. 12 were plotted with respect to the
average detected system stiffness for each of the eight stiffness set-
tings that were experimentally evaluated. The system stiffness of
the steel bar is at the far right of each plot.
7. Discussion
A biomimetic comparison can be made between the stiffness-
dependent adaptive sliding mode controller and the human
hand, which also exhibits stiffness-dependent gains during typi-
cal manipulation tasks [29]. The adaptive sliding mode controller
would be useful when handling different objects in tasks of daily
living. For example, if a stiff object was grasped, the gains would
increase to improve the tracking. If a low stiffness object was
grasped, the gains would decrease to prevent oscillations and
excessive overshoot. Additionally, if a brittle object was inadver-
tently cracked, the stiffness would decrease, triggering a de-
crease in the system control gains. This would have the effect
of lowering the applied force on the object, helping to prevent
additional damage to the object. Improving the grasp force sen-
sitivity for prosthetic hands is also important for amputees [28].
In addition to these benets, the stiffness detection algorithm
presented herein can lead to improved control algorithms for
dexterous articial hands [36,37] based on identication of the
grasped object.
The stiffness detection algorithm (7) that is implemented over a
1 mmsliding window to enable detection of nonlinear systemstiff-
ness conditions requires only two subtraction operations, a quo-
tient, and a low-pass lter. The adaptive system gains are piece-
wise linearly scaled by the detected system stiffness. Thus, the
relationship between the manifold slope and the detected stiffness
is intuitive and could be implemented in a clinical setting with
only a minor increase in computational expense. The existing force
and position sensors used to implement the hybrid force-position
sliding mode control algorithm are the only sensors needed to de-
tect the system stiffness, which yields a practical and economical
implementation in a clinical setting.
In this paper, the ASMC was implemented for a one degree of
freedom prosthetic hand. Extension of this variable slope ASMC
algorithm to a more complex robotic hand such as the Dexterous
Shadow Hand [36], could be readily accomplished with appropri-
ate joint angle feedback and ngertip tactile sensors such as the
BioTac [38]. Knowledge of the forward kinematics and the joint an-
gle feedback could be used to calculate the nger and thumb tip
Cartesian positions and thus the change in end effector position
during manipulation. Tactile sensors in the ngertips could be con-
currently used to detect the change in applied force during manip-
ulation. Fusion of these feedback signals could be used to estimate
the stiffness of the grasped object and subsequently to adapt the
sliding manifold slope as described in this paper. For any type of
grasp (precision, power, three nger, lateral pinch, etc. [39]), the
stiffness between any two contact points between the manipulator
and object could be calculated. As in this paper, the manifold slope
could be increased with increasing system stiffness to reduce
tracking error during manipulation. This could also be done digit
by digit to account for objects that have nonhomogeneous
stiffness.
8. Conclusion
In response to the desire expressed by amputees for prosthetic
hands to better adapt to the parameters of different grasped ob-
jects [5,9], an adaptive sliding mode controller was developed with
a stiffness-dependent variable-slope manifold. This controller
adapts the gains and manifold slope based on the detected stiffness
of the grasped object. Bench top experiments were performed to
compare the adaptive sliding mode controller to a traditional slid-
ing mode controller. Results indicated that both controllers had
satisfactory percent overshoot to the step inputs (less than 1%).
However, the adaptive sliding mode controller exhibited a statisti-
cally signicant reduction in average absolute tracking error over a
broad range of grasped object stiffness.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Motion Control, Inc. for their
generosity and J. Billock for helpful discussions during these
experiments.
Fig. 12. (a) The average percent overshoot of each controller with each of the eight
system stiffness settings. In each case, the average overshoot is less than 1%. (b) The
average absolute steady state error for each controller with the eight system
stiffness settings calculated during the step portions of the input. The adaptive
sliding mode controller has signicantly less error than the sliding mode controller
with higher levels of stiffness but the error is nearly the same with low levels of
stiffness. (c) The average absolute error for each controller with the eight system
stiffness settings. The adaptive sliding mode controller has signicantly less error
than the sliding mode controller.
1178 R. Andrecioli, E.D. Engeberg / Mechatronics 23 (2013) 11711179
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