Lower limb exoskeleton robot and its cooperative control: A review, trends, and challenges for future research

Gilbert Masengo; Xiaodong Zhang; Runlin Dong; Ahmad B Alhassan; Khaled Hamza; Emmanuel Mudaheranwa

doi:10.3389/fnbot.2022.913748

Lower limb exoskeleton robot and its cooperative control: A review, trends, and challenges for future research

Front Neurorobot. 2023 Jan 12:16:913748. doi: 10.3389/fnbot.2022.913748. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Gilbert Masengo^{1

2

3}, Xiaodong Zhang^{1

2}, Runlin Dong^{1

2}, Ahmad B Alhassan^{1

2}, Khaled Hamza^{1

2}, Emmanuel Mudaheranwa^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ School of Mechanical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.
² Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Intelligent Robot, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Rwanda Polytechnic/Integrated Polytechnic Regional College (IPRC) Karongi, Kigali, Rwanda.
⁴ Department of Engineering, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Effective control of an exoskeleton robot (ER) using a human-robot interface is crucial for assessing the robot's movements and the force they produce to generate efficient control signals. Interestingly, certain surveys were done to show off cutting-edge exoskeleton robots. The review papers that were previously published have not thoroughly examined the control strategy, which is a crucial component of automating exoskeleton systems. As a result, this review focuses on examining the most recent developments and problems associated with exoskeleton control systems, particularly during the last few years (2017-2022). In addition, the trends and challenges of cooperative control, particularly multi-information fusion, are discussed.

Keywords: actuator; cooperative control; exoskeleton; human-robot; physiological signals.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 52175061, in part by the Shanxi Provincial Key Research Project under Grant 2020XXX001, in part by the Science and technology innovation project of Shaanxi province under Grant 2019ZDLGY14-09, in part by the Xinjiang Funded by Autonomous Region Major Science and Technology Special Project under Grant 2021A02002, in part by the Shaanxi Provincial Key R&D Program under Grant 2022SF-352, 2023-YBGY-355, 2023-YBGY-356, and in part by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant xzd012022019.