Motion control for an intelligent walking support machine

Walking is a vital exercise for health promotion and fundamental ability necessary for everyday life. Up to now, many robots for walking support or walking rehabilitation of the elderly and the disabled are reported. In this paper, a new omni-directional walking support machine is developed. The machine can realize walking support by following the user’s control intention which is detected according to the user’s manipulation. However, the motion of the machine is affected by the nonlinear frictions, center-ofgravity (COG) shifts and loads changes caused by users. It is necessary to improve the machine’s motion performance to follow the user intention and support the user. Therefore, this paper describes a motion control method based on digital acceleration control to deal with the problem of nonlinear frictions, COG shifts and loads changes. Simulations are executed and the results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed digital acceleration control method.