Control of a hydraulic hexapod robot used in a rehabilitation application

Abstract

In the last decades, the quantity of robot applications has increased enormously in various areas of operation. Their advantages like automation and accuracy are interesting for health care, as well. Besides of surgery and patient transportation, robots can be used for therapy, too. This master thesis presents an analytical model of a hydraulic hexapod robot, which is intended to be used as a gait trainer in a rehabilitation application. In order to prove the model, a measurement of all actuators is performed. They prove the linear plant characteristic caused by an installed pressure compensator. Consequently, a suitable decoupled state space control and an observer are developed and simulated. Considering the velocity and the control effort, the feedforward linear-quadratic state space controller shows the best system performance. The tests permit a model simplification and exhibit the negligible influence of small loads. The potential of the hexapod robot has to be considered regarding the further development of the periphery. Doing so, the presented controller can be implemented and the robot can be used in many areas.