Force observer-based control for a rehabilitation hand exoskeleton system

This paper is a component of a research project regarding the design and development of an Intelligent Haptic Robot-Glove for the rehabilitation of the patients that have a diagnosis of a cerebrovascular accident. In this paper, the control system for a rehabilitation hand exoskeleton is discussed. In order to avoid the complex problems given by a distributed sensor network, this paper treats the problem of the compliance force control by using observers: a velocity observer, a force observer and a disturbance observer. Two control solutions are discussed. First, the disturbance effects are eliminated by a cascade closed loop control with velocity and force observers. Then, a disturbance observer is used to compensate the compliance effects. The performance of the control systems is demonstrated by the simulation.