The torque control system of exoskeleton

ExoArm 7-DOF used in bilateral teleoperation

system
Cite as: AIP Conference Proceedings 2029, 020020 (2018); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5066482
Published Online: 29 October 2018

Paweł Herbin, and Mirosław Pajor

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© 2018 Author(s).
 The Torque Control System of Exoskeleton Exoarm 7-DOF
Used in Bilateral Teleoperation System
Paweł Herbin1, a) and Mirosław Pajor1, b)
1
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Mechatronic, West Pomeranian University of Technology Szczecin,
Poland
a)
Corresponding author: pawel.herbin@zut.edu.pl
b)
miroslaw.pajor@zut.edu.pl

Abstract. The upper limb exoskeleton presented in this paper is a device that enables the operator to control machines with
force feedback. This is only feasible if the operator does not feel the weight of the device. The operator should only feel
the resistance coming from the controlled device i.e. loading crane. The exoskeleton's control system should generate the
motion of the exoskeleton so that the device follows the movement of the operator’s upper limb. The paper presents the
method of connection of master and slave control systems in bilateral teleoperation. The developed control algorithm allows
for implementation of two control methods: position control method and torque control method, obtaining the possibility
of hybrid positional-force control. The torque value control algorithm can be used to maintain the exoskeleton’s force of
interaction with the operator at a given level. Maintaining the torque at before set level enables the implementation of force
feedback while controlling the position of the slave device. Experimental tests of the described control system were carried
out on the exoskeleton’s joint responsible for the movement of the operator’s elbow joint.

INTRODUCTION
Bilateral teleoperation system corresponds to the control Slave object via Master device. In this paper, the position
control method of Master device is presented. In this case, the Master device is the exoskeleton of human upper limb
(Exo-Arm 7-DOF), whose construction has been described in detail in [1]. This exoskeleton is equipped with closed
loop cable conduit system widely used in surgical robots, which was presented in publications [2-4]. Its pull-pull
configuration is utilized for moving patient-site manipulators [5,6]. The transmission of force by wrapping connectors
allows to move away drives from the manipulator. On the other hand, control of cable conduit systems is a major
challenge, mainly due to friction occurring between wrapping connectors and flexible tube. Nonlinearities induced by
friction causes significant loss of wrapping connectors tension, as well as vibrations and backlash at the output site of
the conduit system [7,8].
Research conducted by scientists focuses on determining the effects of friction in devices equipped with closed
loop cable conduit systems. Kaneko et al. [9, 10] presented an analytical approach to modeling the rigidity of a single
cable considering Coulomb's friction. Similar models were presented by Palli et al. [11, 12]. In these case the Karnoppa
continuous friction model was used. Feed forward method of compensation friction in Bowden cable was presented
by Jeong et al. [13]. Mentioned above authors present also control strategies taking into account various friction
models.
This paper is aimed at presentation of position control system and hybrid position-torque control system of
exoskeleton’s joints. The first method takes into account compensation of friction occurring between wrapping
connectors and flexible tube. The hybrid method is based on the position control system with friction compensation.
In addition, this method uses a drive torque regulator in the form of a PI controller. The output value of the PI controller
is the value of the position correction for the position controller.

Mechatronics Systems and Materials 2018

AIP Conf. Proc. 2029, 020020-1–020020-9; https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5066482
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1751-9/$30.00

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 THE EXPERIMENTAL STAND
The position control system and the hybrid position-torque control system tests were carried out using the upper
limb exoskeleton designed by the authors [14]. The experimental stand consists mainly of the exoskeleton’s joint,
responsible for the elbow joint movement of the operator, equipped with encoder (for joint position measurements)
connected with NI PXI measuring card. The master device is also equipped with the link wheel torque sensor mounted
on the joint’s rotation axis. The developed torque sensor was described in [15]. In exoskeleton ExoArm 7-DOF, the
closed loop conduit system with Bowden cables in pull-pull configuration was also applied [13]. It connects the DC
actuators with exoskeleton’s joint. Scheme of the drive system is shown in Figure 1.

FIGURE 1. Scheme of the drive system with closed loop cable conduit system in pull-pull configuration.

The mentioned control systems were implemented on the NI-PXI platform. The scheme of the control systems is
shown in Fig. 2. The position of the joint, measured by the encoder CUI AMT 203v, is transmitted to the NI-PXI
platform via the RS485 serial port. The torque generated by DC actuator, measured on the joint through the link wheel
torque sensor, is transmitted in the form of a voltage analog signal to the strain gauge ESAM Traveller CF, and then
to the NI-PXI platform.

FIGURE 2. Scheme of DC linear actuator supply, joint position and torque measurement system.

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 The NI-PXI modules generates a voltage analog signal that is passed to the DC motor controller, which has been
built based on H bridge. On the basis of this signal, the DC motor controller supplies the DC actuator with a modulated
voltage in form of a PWM variable-filled signal. Depending on the DC power polarization, the actuator increases the
tension of one Bowden cable of closed loop conduit system connected to the joint. Due to the flexibility of the
wrapping connectors, it was decided to place encoder CUI AMT 203v directly on the joint’s axis. Fig. 3 is a photograph
of the experimental stand.

FIGURE 3. Photograph of the experimental stand for testing control algorithms.

SIMPLE JOINT POSITION CONTROL SYSTEM

Various joint position control structures have been investigated. The first tests were performed on the simplest PID
controller. The friction occurring in the Bowden cables makes reasonable the application of integration action in
position controller. The layout of the position control system is shown in Fig. 4. The output from the PID regulator is
limited to a level of 0 - 10V where 5V is a neutral value. Fig. 5 shows the results of the work of joint position follow-
up system with setpoint value in form of sinusoidal waveform signal.

FIGURE 4. Diagram of the exoskeleton joint position control system.

Fig. 5a shows the sinusoidal reference signal and the system response i.e. position of the controlled exoskeleton
joint. Control error increases significantly when the direction of the joint motion is changing, as shown in the Fig. 5b.
Increasing the control error is caused by the presence of considerable value of friction in Bowden cables. The friction
force increases the length of the wrapping connector without performing joint motion. Fig. 5c shows the value of the
PWM duty cycle applied to the H bridge of DC linear actuator. When the PID controller is used, a jerk can be observed
when changing the direction of joint motion.

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 FIGURE 5. Controlling the position of the joint with sinusoidal input function with an amplitude of 80 deg and a period of 20
sec using a PID controller

At the next stage of the experiment, to reduce the control error of the joint position and jerk while changing the
direction of joint movement, control system with friction compensation was applied.

THE POSITION CONTROL SYSTEM WITH FRICTION COMPENSATION

In order to find an effective method of eliminating the impact of friction on operation of cable conduit systems,
we conducted several tests of position control systems with friction compensation. In this article we describe the
control system with a Stribeck effect compensator. The use of this system effectively eliminated the problem described
in preceding section that occurs during changing the direction of joint motion. The scheme of the control system is
shown in Fig. 6. At low velocity of joint motion, while the position error occur, this control system increases the PWM
fill value by the compensation value, defined as:

( )
𝑘(𝑠) = 𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛 𝑒(𝑠) ∗ 𝑒 , (1)

where:

𝑘(𝑠) − compensation value

𝑒(𝑠) − control error
𝑥(𝑠) − position of joint

This results in faster start-up of the DC actuator motor, quick clearance of the backlash caused by the friction force
in the Bowden cables, and consequently in a significant reduction of joint position control error when changing the
direction of joint movement, as shown in 7.

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 FIGURE 6. PID control system with Stribeck friction compensation

FIGURE 7. Controlling the position of the joint with sinusoidal input function with an amplitude of 80 deg and a period of 20
sec using a PID controller with Stribeck compensator.

THE HYBRID POSITION-TORQUE CONTROL SYSTEM

Achieving the bilateral teleoperation with force feedback requires development of a torque control system of the
exoskeleton’s joints. In currently applied DC actuators in experimental stand, it is difficult to control the force
generated by DC actuator i.e. this force is not proportional to the voltage applied to the DC actuator. Therefore, the
joint position control system have to be used to trigger the specified drive torque of the exoskeleton joint. The
displacement of the actuator 𝑥 and the joint position 𝑥 according to Fig. 8 results in the force 𝑀 in the current
working wrapping connector:

𝑀 = 𝑥 −𝑥 𝑘 (2)

where:
k - Bowden's cable flexibility (Nm/deg.).

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 FIGURE 8. Unified model of the drive system.

According to the Equation (2), to obtain the desired drive torque of joint during the movement, a suitable correction
of joint position is required. It was determined using the PI torque controller preceding the PID position regulator as
shown in the Figure 6.
The link wheel torque sensor measures the torque of interaction force between the operator's arm and the
exoskeleton increased by loads resulting from the dynamics of the exoskeleton. Therefore, in order to detect the torque
of interaction force, it is necessary to subtract (on adder A) the value of torque resulting from the dynamics model of
a simple exoskeleton [14] from the measured driving torque. To adder A we also entered signal of reference torque
i.e. the potential value of the torque coming from the controlled slave object (in this case loading crane). The proposed
control system allows for interaction with force feedback between the exoskeleton and the operator's arm.

FIGURE 9. The hybrid position-torque control system

The exoskeleton's hybrid control system was designed to realize the elbow joint movement following the reference
sinusoidal position signal with maintaining a constant reference torque. The reference sinusoidal position signal was
increased by correction value of position (see Fig. 11) in order to maintain the torque at a set constant level of 0 Nm.
Exoskeleton joint position signal compared with reference signal, the difference of these signals and the PWM fill
value, obtained using the position-torque hybrid control system, are presented in Figure 10. Figure 11 shows also the
signal of torque, measured by the link wheel sensor, resulting from the dynamics of the object, as well as from loading
the joint with external forces. It is worth to notice that this control system allows for new exoskeleton functionality
i.e. obtaining a force feedback with the operator's hand, without significantly increasing the error between the joint
position signal and the reference one.

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FIGURE 10. Controlling the position of the joint with maintaining a constant reference torque during joint movement following
the sinusoidal input position function with an amplitude of 80 deg and a period of 20 sec.

FIGURE 11. Controlling the load torque of joint during its movement according to sinusoidal trajectory.

In order to confirm the quality of the exoskeleton's cooperation with the operator, we conducted additional test of
developed control system, consisting in the task of setting a fixed reference joint position and fixed reference torque.
The proposed hybrid control system makes it possible to control the joint position with a given constant torque coming
from external forces. During movement of the operator's arm, the control system modifies the position of the

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exoskeleton’s joint to maintain the set torque. As a result, we get a change in the position of the joint depending on
the direction of the upper limb movement and the velocity of this change depends on the force exerted on the device
by the operator's hand. The test results are presented in Figures 12 and 13.

FIGURE 12. The position of the joint, error between exoskeleton joint position and modified reference position and PWM fill
value during the torque control.

FIGURE 13. Adjustment of the joint torque coming from external forces.

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 SUMMARY
The methods of controlling the joint position, proposed in this publication, significantly reduce the influence of
backlash caused by the friction force between the wrapping connector and the flexible tube. The Stribeck compensator,
applied in position control loop, minimizes the DC actuator start-up time and influence of backlash in closed loop
cable conduit system. In hybrid position-torque control system, achievement of a specific torque is related to the
appropriate tension of one of the wrapping connectors, which is achieved by correcting the joint reference position.
The developed hybrid control system allows control of the exoskeleton joint position without additional loading of
the operator’s arm. The operator only feels the motion resistance when the value of reference torque is different from
zero. Future work will target the evaluation of presented exoskeleton control methods in connection with real crane
control system.

ACKNOWLEGMENT
This project is financed by the National Centre for Research and Development, Poland (NCBiR), under the Applied
Research Programme — Grant agreement No.PBS3/A6/28/2015.

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