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RLSESN‐based PID adaptive control for a novel wearable rehabilitation robotic

hand driven by PM‐TS actuators

Article  in  International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics · March 2012

DOI: 10.1108/17563781211208242

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International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics
Emerald Article: RLSESN-based PID adaptive control for a novel wearable
rehabilitation robotic hand driven by PM-TS actuators
Jun Wu, Jian Huang, Yongji Wang, Kexin Xing

Article information:
To cite this document: Jun Wu, Jian Huang, Yongji Wang, Kexin Xing, (2012),"RLSESN-based PID adaptive control for a novel
wearable rehabilitation robotic hand driven by PM-TS actuators", International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics,
Vol. 5 Iss: 1 pp. 91 - 110
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Adaptive control
RLSESN-based PID adaptive for a robotic
control for a novel wearable hand
rehabilitation robotic hand driven
91
by PM-TS actuators
Received 7 July 2011
Jun Wu, Jian Huang, Yongji Wang and Kexin Xing Revised 3 December 2011
Key Laboratory of Image Processing and Intelligent Control, Accepted 8 December 2011
Department of Control Science and Engineering,
Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a novel wearable rehabilitation robotic hand
driven by Pneumatic Muscle-Torsion Spring (PM-TS) for finger therapy. PM has complex nonlinear
dynamics, which makes PM modelling difficult. To realize high-accurate tracking for the robotic hand,
an Echo State Network (ESN)-based PID adaptive controller is proposed, even though the plant model
is unknown.
Design/methodology/approach – To drive a single joint of rehabilitation robotic hand, the paper
proposes a new PM-TS actuator comprising a Pneumatic Muscle (PM) and a Torsion Spring (TS).
Based on the novel actuator, a wearable robotic hand is designed. By employing the model-free
approximation capability of ESN, the RLSESN based PID adaptive controller is presented for
improving the trajectory tracking performance of the rehabilitation robotic hand. An ESN together
with Recursive Least Square (RLS) is called a RLSESN, where the ESN output weight matrix is
updated by the online RLS learning algorithm.
Findings – Practical experiments demonstrate the validity of the PM-TS actuator and indicate that
the performance of the RLSESN based PID adaptive controller is better than that of the conventional
PID controller. In addition, they also verify the effectiveness of the proposed rehabilitation robotic
hand.
Originality/value – A new PM-TS actuator configuration that uses a PM and a torsion spring for
bi-directional movement of joint is presented. By utilizing the new PM-TS actuator, a novel wearable
rehabilitation robotic hand for finger therapy is designed. Based on the unknown plant model, the
RLSESN_PID controller is proposed to attain satisfactory performance.
Keywords Robotics, Control systems, Controllers, Actuators, Adaptive system theory,
Wearable rehabilitation robotic hand, Echo state network, Pneumatic muscle, Trajectory tracking
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
Adult disability is a common result of stroke in many countries, and usually involves
deficits of motor functions. Repetitive training is the key aspect of regaining

This work has been supported in part by Hi-tech Research and Development Program of China International Journal of Intelligent
Computing and Cybernetics
under Grant 2007AA04Z204 and Grant 2008AA04Z207, and in part by the Natural Science Vol. 5 No. 1, 2012
Foundation of China under Grant 60674105, 60975058 and 61075095. The authors also gratefully pp. 91-110
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
acknowledge the helpful comments and suggestions of the reviewers, which have improved the 1756-378X
presentation. DOI 10.1108/17563781211208242
IJICC independence after stroke. Such therapy enhances motor function recovery, improves
5,1 movement coordination as well as generates new motion strategies to cope with
activities of daily living. Traditional manually assisted training has several major
limitations. This training is usually labor-intensive. The disadvantageous consequence
is that manual training sessions are shorter than required to gain an optimal
therapeutic time due to the fatigue of the therapists. With the help of rehabilitation
92 robot, the training duration can be easily increased. Furthermore, by using plentiful
sensing techniques, the robot provides quantitative measures that facilitate evaluating
the rehabilitation progress. Most important of all, several evidences have been shown
that rehabilitation robotic systems/devices have beneficial effect on the rehabilitation
progress of stroke patients (Prange et al., 2006; Takahashi et al., 2008). Since human
hand motion is very important for the activities of everyday life, there has been a
continuous effort by engineers to develop robotic systems that can assist and improve
the rehabilitation outcomes of patients with neuromuscular disabilities, such as the
Rutgers Hand Master II-ND Force-Feedback Glove (Bouzit et al., 2002), the HWARD
robotic hand-therapy device (Takahashi et al., 2005), the cable-driven finger therapy
robot (Dovat et al., 2007), the finger exoskeleton (Ertas et al., 2009), Hand Exoskeleton
Rehabilitation Robot (Schabowsky et al., 2010) and so on. Unfortunately, some of these
robotic systems/devices for hand training tend to be heavy, bulky, unwearable, or
expensive for home use by individuals with hand impairments. Therefore, these
applications are usually impractical in practice. Motivated by these reasons, we
develop a novel wearable, safe, affordable robotic hand to assist finger therapy.
Traditional robotic systems are usually driven by electric motors, which lack of
necessary compliance and safety for patients. Pneumatic muscle (PM) actuator is very
similar in action to human skeletal muscle and at a very low level of risk of injury. The
main advantages of PM are safety, light weight, compliance, cheapness and high
power/weight ratios (Tsagarakis and Caldwell, 2003; Chang and Yuan, 2009). It is very
compatibly used in rehabilitation robots. A challenge for the application of PM is that it
can be only operated in the contractile direction. Hence, PMs have to be used in
antagonistic pairs to achieve bi-directional motion for a single joint (Noritsugu and
Tanaka, 1997; Chang and Yuan, 2009; Xiong et al., 2009). Unfortunately, this
arrangement requires the control of at least two actuators simultaneously. It will not
only increase the complexity of mechanical design and control, but also make
the system/device bulk, weight and even the cost greatly increased. In our design
of the rehabilitation robotic hand, we hope to use a compact structure to realize
the bi-directional motion of joint driven by the PM. An available way to meet the
requirement is to minimize the number of PM for each angle. For the above reasons, we
propose a new actuator structure comprising a PM and a torsion spring (TS), called
PM-TS actuator, and design a novel wearable rehabilitation robotic hand driven by the
new PM-TS actuator.
Another challenge is the difficulty of the accurate control of PM, which is caused by
its complex nonlinear dynamics. In contrast to electric motor, PM has some different
features, such as slow response time in the force generation, time-varying parameters
depending on the load position/speed and so on. These characteristics have restricted its
widespread use in the past. Many researchers have proposed control schemes for solving
control problems of PM systems. Based on the mathematical model of PM, the control of
PM system is realized by using backstepping (Carbonell et al., 2001), sliding mode
control (Van Damme et al., 2008) and so on. PM modelling is complex process, although Adaptive control
there are some mathematic models of PM are built. Unfortunately, these models have a for a robotic
large numbers of parameters, which make these models too complicated for practical
application. Thus, an accurate and simple mathematic model of PM is still difficult to hand
attain. With the unknown plant model, the PID controller is the most widely used
technique to cope with nonlinear plants and industrial applications because of its simple
structure, easy implementation and robustness to noise in a wide range of operating 93
conditions (Hsu et al., 2011). However, in practice, it is difficult to obtain a satisfactory
performance when applying a PID controller in a high-precision trajectory tracking task.
With the development of adaptive robust control (Boukattaya et al., 2011), fuzzy control
(Chang et al., 2009; Jain et al., 2010), neural networks (Liu et al., 2008; Leu and Hong, 2010)
and some other artificial intelligence approaches (Zhong, 2008), precise tracking control
problems are partially solved by using these theories and technologies. Because ANNs
have self-organization, self-learning, adaptive ability, the intelligent control approaches
based on ANNs have become one of the most important ways to get small tracking error
and good robustness.
Recently, the echo state network (ESN) has been introduced as a novel approach by
Jaeger (2001, 2002) for time series modelling and nonlinear system identification. The
notable character of ESN is that its internal layer is composed of a large number of
neurons and the neurons are sparsely connected to each other. This layer can map
inputs into high-dimensional space and reserve information of the past. It makes the
ESN not only holds self-organization, self-learning, adaptive ability, but also has
short-term memory. It only adjusts the output weights, which lead from the input and
internal nodes to the output nodes. The recursive least square (RLS) algorithm can be
applied to online training the ESN without affecting the previous weight structure,
which is very suitable for real-time control problems. Nevertheless, to the best of our
knowledge there are few applications of utilizing an ESN-based method in the control
field. Here, we propose a new RLSESN-based PID (RLSESN_PID) adaptive controller
for the tracking problem. An ESN together with RLS training algorithm is called a
RLSESN.
This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 proposes a new PM-TS actuator,
and then analyzes the related mechanical and control structure of the novel
wearable rehabilitation robotic hand. In Section 3, RLSESN_PID control algorithm is
addressed. We take advantage of both RLSESN and PID control technique to construct
a RLSESN_PID controller. In Section 4, the experimental results of the proposed
rehabilitation robotic hand driven by PM-TS actuators are presented by using the
RLSESN_PID controller as well as the conventional PID controller. Finally, the
conclusion of current work is described.

2. The novel wearable rehabilitation robotic hand

The design issues about rehabilitation robotic systems/devices involve different
purposes and requirements. Lee et al. (2005) gave a survey and some suggestions for
the design of rehabilitation robot. In this paper, the design goal is to develop a
therapeutic robotic hand, which is compact for portability, relatively easy for wear,
capable of interacting with computer based visual biofeedback system to capture the
user’s interest and has the potential to be inexpensive and amenable for home and
clinical use.
IJICC 2.1 Mechanical structure
5,1 The use of traditional motor actuators in exoskeleton rehabilitation robot makes the
joint motion stiff for lack of compliance, while the behavior of PM is very similar to
human skeletal muscle. It can provide compliance and augment the safety compared to
those rigid actuators. A PM is made from inexpensive materials, such as a natural latex
tube, a braided sleeving and so on (Figure 1). The maximum contraction ratio of PM
94 which made in lab is about 25 percent.
In order to transforming the translation into the rotation, pulley mechanism is
employed. In the traditional way, PMs have to be used in antagonistic pairs to achieve
bi-directional movement for a single joint as shown in Figure 2(b). This arrangement
not only increases the complexity of mechanical design and control system, but also
augments the device’s bulk, weight and even the cost. An available way to overcome
these shortcomings is to minimize the number of PMs for each joint. For the above
reasons, we propose a new actuator structure comprising a PM and a TS, called PM-TS
actuator. The PM is arranged in the suitable place to provide the pulling moment and
the TS provides opposing torque, which is shown in Figure 2(a). The PM-TS actuator
not only keeps the compliant feature of PM, but also achieves bi-directional movement.
Based on the proposed PM-TS actuator, we develop a novel wearable rehabilitation
robotic hand. Figure 3 shows the 3D model of the robotic hand, which is designed in
Solidworks. The major goals of mechanical design can be summarized as follows:
.
The current version of robotic hand has a 2-DOF mechanism comprised of two
rotary joints at the finger’s metacarpophalangeal (MP) joint and proximal
interphalangeal (PIP) joint, respectively. It makes the finger movement more
comfortable, suitable and flexible.

Figure 1.
(a) Materials of PM and
(b) PM made in lab
(a) (b)

m m
Ff Ff

θ θ
Figure 2.
(a) 1-DOF driven by
PM-TS actuator and
(b) 1-DOF driven by Ft
a pair of PMs
(a) (b)
 .
Bi-directional movement is provided by PM-TS actuator for each DOF. Adaptive control
.
The movement of angle is limited by the mechanism for safety. for a robotic
.
The robotic hand can be worn comfortably and easily. hand
The PMs are arranged on the top of the forearm attachment and the TSs are mounted
in MP and PIP joints. The steel wires are used to connect the PMs and the pulleys
through the wire conduits and the wire racks. The wire conduits are fixed by the wire 95
racks, by which the movement coupling of the 2-DOFs is avoided. The steel wires
driven by PM-TS actuators lead to the rotation of the pulleys, which also results in the
rotation of finger joints. A press plate is placed above the proximal phalanges. This
plate ensures that the proximal phalanges are parallel to the corresponding mechanical
link. Glide mechanism is assembled on the press plate and finger splint link to adapt
the relative movement between the robotic hand and human fingers, as shown in
Figure 4. In addition, it also reduces the friction between the exoskeleton and the back
of the fingers to gain comfortable wear.

6
4
1 5
2 3 7

9 8
11
13 10
12

Notes: 1 – PM; 2 – steel wire; 3 – wire rack; 4 – wire conduits; 5 – angle sensor; Figure 3.
6 – press plate; 7 – finger splint link; 8 – finger splint; 9 – glide mechanism; 10 – TS; The 3D model of the
robotic hand
11 – pulley; 12 – forearm attachment; 13 – forearm hoop

Angle sensor
Guide block
Chute
Slide block Figure 4.
The glide mechanism
used in robotic hand
Slide block
IJICC The wearable rehabilitation robotic hand can be worn on the forearm, as shown in
5,1 Figure 5. The Hall-effect encoders are mounted in the axes of each joint for angle
measure. All the two rotary ranges of the joints are limited by the mechanism to
ensure safety. The majority of the lightweight robotic hand is manufactured by the
thermoplastic plastics. By using velcro strap, the robotic hand provides a comfortable
wear for the patients.
96
2.2 Fundamental motion
The extensions of the MP and PIP joints of fingers in able-bodied volunteers with the
wearable robotic hand are performed as the fundamental experiment. Table I shows
the joint angles that are measured when the robotic hand works, where u0 means the
minimum initial angle, du represents the maximum increased angle and u is the
maximum current angle. u0, du and u are shown, respectively, in Figure 6.

2.3 Safety features

For a wearable rehabilitation robotic hand, the safety is dominant among all
performances. The affected hand needs to be absolutely safe when interacting with the
robotic hand. Redundant safety is realized through the following measures:

Figure 5.
The prototype of the
wearable rehabilitation
robotic hand

Angle MP (rad/deg) PIP (rad/deg)

Table I. u0 1.9199/110 1.5708/90

The ranges of motion for du 1.2217/70 1.5708/90
robotic hand u 3.1416/180 3.1416/180

MP
PIP θ
δθ

*metacarpophal angeal joint - MP

Figure 6. θ0 : Initial angle θ0
(a) Disposition of joints
*proximal interphal angeal δθ: Increased angle
and (b) initial angle and
joint -PIP θ: Angle of joint
increased joint angle for
the fingers
(a) (b)
 .
The risk to patients is minimized in design by utilizing the compliant PM-TS Adaptive control
actuator. for a robotic
. Mechanical travel limitation for the 2-DOF to prevent excessive opening/rotation. hand
.
Pressure regulating valve can limit the maximal pressure for supplying PM-TS
actuator.
.
Software safety routines that monitor the output to prevent excessive velocities, 97
accelerations, forces or pressures that could harm the subject. For instance, if the
pressure for the PM exceeds the preset limit, the pressure will be set to the limit
value.
.
A main power interrupter that can be actuated by the human subject by pushing
an emergency button switch during the training, when they are feeling any
discomfort, fatigue or anxiety.

2.4 Control system

Task-oriented repetitive movements can improve muscular strength and movement
coordination in patients with impairments due to neurological problems. A typical
repetitive hand functional movement is grasping (flexion) and releasing (extension).
Figure 7 shows the block diagram of control system for the rehabilitation robotic
hand. The final goal of control scheme is to provide controllable, quantifiable
assistance specific to patients by adapting the level of the assistance provided. The
sensor system feeds back the angle, pressure and force information for adaptation of
the assistive force and quantitative evaluation of task performance. The angle sensors
are arranged in the MP and PIP joints of fingers to measure the joint flexion and
extension. The robotic hand with the strain gauge compression force sensors involves
the patients in their hand rehabilitation by encouraging self-powered motion,
and assisting movement when necessary. In addition, there is also a pressure sensor

Computer System MP Extension

Clinicians Gas Pressure Sensor Force Sensor Hall-effect Encoder

Control
algorithms Pneumatic Muscle

PM-TS Actuator
Electric Proportional Valve
Data Acquisition Card
PIP Extension
Gas Pressure Sensor Force Sensor Hall-effect Encoder
USB DAC ADC

Pneumatic Muscle

PM-TS Actuator
Electric Proportional Valve
Virtual reality
environment
Patient Input
Output
Signal amplification Pressure regulating Air
& valve
signal filtering Figure 7.
Strain Gauge Block diagram of
Power supply Compression Force Sensor
AC 24 VDC
control system for
5 VDC 12 VDC the rehabilitation
Panic Switch MP
Air
Compressor
robotic hand
Signal Preprocess Circuit Board
IJICC integrated in the electric proportional valve to provide the local feedback. The real-time
5,1 data acquisition card (Advantech USB-4716) is responsible for sampling all sensory
data (e.g. angle, pressure, force, etc.) and transfers them to the host computer. The host
computer runs the control algorithms and a virtual reality (VR) game. The analog
output of the card is connected to the electric proportional valve to control the PMs.
The air transmission unit is an air-conditioning circuit which contains pressure
98 regulating valve and electric proportional valve. The evaluation of task performance is
fed back to patients by intuitive cues integrated within the VR game. In addition, the
VR game makes the rehabilitation exercise entertaining and engaging, as well as
motivates the patients to immerse themselves in the task-related training for attaining
better rehabilitation effect.

3. RLSESN-based PID control for the rehabilitation robotic hand

In our previous study (Xing et al., 2010), we have done some research about PM control in
both theory and application. However, PM modelling is difficult to attain an accurate
and simple mathematic model of PM. Furthermore, different people have different finger
masses, lengths and inertia moments. It is also complicated to build the dynamic model
of robotic hand for different individuals. Fortunately, it has been witnessed that neural
networks have been increasingly adopted in the nonlinear control systems, due to their
model-free approximation and predictive capability. Compared with the static neural
network, ESN is a recurrent neural network (RNN) and more suitable for the dynamic
representations to efficiently capture the dynamic behavior of a complex nonlinear
system. In addition, in contrast to normal RNNs, whose training algorithms are
computationally very costly, an ESN only adjusts the output weights, which lead from
the input and internal nodes to the output nodes. It is suitable for the real-time control.
Thus, we employ ESN for the control of the proposed rehabilitation robotic hand.

3.1 Topological structure of ESN

As both work using the mechanism of reservoir computing, the ESN first proposed by
Jaeger (2001), shares some similarities with the liquid state machine proposed by
Maass et al. (2002) (Figure 8).

N Internal units

W Wout

Wback L Output units

K Input units
Win

Internal circuit
Figure 8. Note: The dash arrows represent the matrix that need to be
The ESN structure
trained while the solid ones represent those that are fixed
Here the ESN is a discrete-time neural network with K input units, N internal units and L Adaptive control
output units. The activations of input units at time step k are uðkÞ ¼ ðu1 ðkÞ; . . . ; uK ðkÞÞT . for a robotic
The activations of internal units are xðkÞ ¼ ðx1 ðkÞ; . . . ; xN ðkÞÞT . The activations of output
yL ðkÞÞT . Real-valued connection weights are collected in a
units are yðkÞ ¼ ð y1 ðkÞ; . . . ;
hand
N £ K weight matrix W in ¼ win ij for the input weights, in a
N £ N matrix W ¼ ðwij Þ for
the internal weights, in a L £ ðK þ N þ LÞ matrix W out
¼ out
wij for the connections to 99
the output units, and in a N £ L matrix W back ¼ wback ij for the connections that
optionally project back from the output to the internal units. The evolution of an ESN is
done by updating the activation of its internal units and the output units step by step
according to equations (1) and (2), which are introduced below.
The next activation xðk þ 1Þ of internal units is updated according to:

xðk þ 1Þ ¼ f ðW in uðk þ 1Þ þ WxðkÞ þ W back yðkÞÞ ð1Þ

where f ¼ ð f 1 ; . . . ; f N Þ are the internal units’ activation functions.

The next output yðk þ 1Þ of ESN is computed according to:

yðk þ 1Þ ¼ f out ðW out ðuðk þ 1Þ; xðk þ 1Þ; yðkÞÞÞ ð2Þ

where f out ¼ ðf out out

1 ; . . . ; f L Þ are the output units’ activation functions.
ðuðk þ 1Þ; xðk þ 1Þ; yðkÞÞ denotes the concatenation vector made from input, internal
and output activation vectors. In our study, we choose sigmoid neurons to form the
hidden layer, and linear units to form the output layer, and assume the ESN without
feedback connections from the output to the reservoir as used in Buehner and Young
(2006) and Rodan and Tiňo (2011). This common-used ESN structure not only keeps
the nonlinear approximation capability and the echo state property, but also to some
extent decreases computational complexity for real-time control.

3.2 Echo state property

The most important property of ESN is the echo state property which was illustrated in
Jaeger (2001, 2002). Under certain conditions, the activation state vector x(k) is uniquely
determined by the left-infinite input histories uðkÞ; uðk 2 1Þ; . . . fed to the network.
More precisely, we say that the network has echo state property, if there exists
an echo function E ¼ ðe1 ; . . . ; eN Þ, where ei : U 2N ! R, so that, for all left-infinite
input histories . . . ; uðk 2 1Þ; uðkÞ [ U 2N , the activation state vector
xðkÞ ¼ Eð . . . ; uðk 2 1Þ; uðkÞÞ. Then the question is: under what condition can this
property be satisfied? This problem is theoretical and somehow complicated. For a
practical use, we simply apply the conclusion obtained in Jaeger (2001). That is, it is
sufficient to ensure this property by scaling the spectral radius of internal weight
matrix to jlmax j , 1 for an ESN with normal sigmoid units in the internal layer.

3.3 Online self-adaption of RLSESN

The RLS algorithm has been used in adaptive identification, prediction, filtering and
many other fields. In our study, the ESN is conjoined with the RLS algorithm for online
self-adaption, and an ESN with RLS algorithm is called a RLSESN.
Note that ESN only adjusts the output weights. If linear units are chosen to form
the output layer of ESN, this ESN structure makes that the training process of ESN
IJICC using RLS is very similar to the filtering process of the adaptive filter using RLS
(Farhang-Boroujeny, 1998).
5,1 If the desired output of ESN is yd ðkÞ. W out ðkÞ is the output weight matrix of ESN at
the kth step, while v is the activation vector of ESN units, which have the output weight
connection with the output units. eðijkÞ ¼ yd ði Þ 2 W out ðkÞvðijkÞ represents the
i-step-ahead prediction error based on the kth step. The following notation on
100 RLSESN is given in Jaeger (2003). The RLS algorithm for ESN output weight update
minimizes the following objective function at the kth step:
X
k
J¼ g k2i e 2 ðijkÞ ð3Þ
i¼1

where g is forgetting parameter, it is usually set to the value smaller or equal to 1.0.
According to the principle of least mean square error, RLS algorithm used in ESN
can be expressed as follows:
Pðk 2 1ÞvðkÞ
lðkÞ ¼ ð4Þ
v T ðkÞPðk
2 1ÞvðkÞ þ g
PðkÞ ¼ g 21 ðPðk 2 1Þ 2 lðkÞv T ðkÞPðk 2 1ÞÞ ð5Þ
y^ ðkÞ ¼ W out ðk 2 1ÞvðkÞ ð6Þ
eðkÞ ¼ yd ðkÞ 2 y^ ðkÞ ð7Þ
W out ðkÞ ¼ W out ðk 2 1Þ þ lðkÞeðkÞ ð8Þ
out
where l stands for the innovation matrix calculated in every time step. W is the
output weight matrix. yd is the vector of target values from the teacher vector of
the training set, and y^ is the output vector which is calculated by ESN. P is the inverse
correlation matrix initialized with large diagonal values and updated in every time
step, it is initialized as:

Pð0Þ ¼ d 21 I ðd . 0Þ ð9Þ
where d is a small positive number. I is used to denote a unit matrix.

3.4 RLSESN-based PID control

To realize high-accurate trajectory tracking performance, we propose a RLSESN-based
PID control method. The schematic structure of the RLSESN-based PID
(RLSESN_PID) controller is shown in Figure 9.
The control algorithm realizes feed forward and feedback control with compound
control of a RLSESN and a PID controller. The ESN identifier identifies the inverse
model of the controlled object by using the online RLS learning algorithm. Then the
output weights of the ESN inverse controller are updated by duplicating the output
weights of the ESN identifier. The ESN inverse controller realizes the feed forward
control to increase the response speed and control precision and the PID controller
implements the feedback control to ensure the system stability. The command signal rin
serves as the input of ESN inverse controller. The output un of ESN inverse controller
and the output up of PID controller constitute the total control variable uc, which realizes
 Adaptive control
ESN Inverse for a robotic
Controller
Rehabilitation Robotic Hand
hand
u
rin + e up n + uc PM-TS τ MP/PIP yout
PID
– Model Joint
+ 101
+ ue RLS Learning
– ui Algorithm

Figure 9.
ESN Identifier Schematic structure of
the RLSESN-based PID
controller

the plant control. By calculating the comparing error ue between the total control
variable uc and the output ui of ESN identifier, the identifier begins learning procedure
via online RLS learning algorithm automatically modifying the output weights of ESN
identifier. The target of learning procedure is to minimize the difference between uc and
ui. The control algorithm can be described in the following algorithm:
Algorithm 1
Step 1. Initialize the weights of ESN and the error covariance matrix P.
Step 2. Attain the activation vector v of ESN units, and then calculate the innovation
matrix l.
Step 3. According to the output uc of the compound controller and the output ui of
the ESN identifier, calculate the identification error ue.
Step 4. Synchronously update the output weights of the ESN identifier and the ESN
controller by using RLS.
Step 5. Update the error covariance matrix P.
Step 6. The compound controller produces the new control value to drive the plant.
Step 7. Collect the new sample values for the next control.
Step 8. If the control process is not completed, then go to Step 2, otherwise go to Step 9.
Step 9. Quit the control process successfully.
Remark: ESN output weight matrix is trained by RLS, which makes ESN output to
approach to the corresponding target value. By RLSESN, the ESN inverse controller can
be built for feed forward control. With unknown plant, PID controller is probably the
most commonly used controller structure for feedback control. Based on the framework
of the feed forward and the feedback control schemes, the compound RLSESN_PID
controller consists of an ESN inverse controller and a PID controller. The ESN inverse
controller realizes a large proportion of output for the control variable by feed forward,
while PID controller provides a kind of control compensation according to the tracking
error to some extent. The suitable parameters are chosen for PID controller to ensure
system stability by feedback loop. Thus, with unknown model, the compound control of
RLSESN_PID controller fully embodies the virtues of feed forward and feedback control
for the high-accurate tracking control of the robotic hand.
IJICC 4. Experiment
5,1 4.1 Experimental condition
Figure 5 shows the prototype of the wearable rehabilitation robotic hand which is used
in experiment. The experimental system is set up according to Figure 7. The
experimental apparatus includes: PMs, the electromagnetic proportional valve,
pressure regulating valve, Hall-effect angle sensor and the Advantech’s acquisition
102 card. Table II shows the physical parameters of PMs used in the rehabilitation robotic
hand for MP and PIP joints. Table III shows the main performance parameters of the
equipments for the system control.
The experiment is to demonstrate that the validity of the PM-TS actuator and the
proposed RLSESN-based PID adaptive controller. The performance of the PID and the
RLSESN_PID controllers are evaluated using sin wave and square wave as the desired
trajectory for the extension/flexion of joints. In our experiment, the parameters of PID
controller for the sine tracking of MP joint are: kp ¼ 0.005, ki ¼ 0.008 and kd ¼ 0.0005,
while kp ¼ 0.005, ki ¼ 0.0002 and kd ¼ 0.0005 in the square tracking of MP joint. The
parameters of PID controller for the sine tracking of PIP joint are: kp ¼ 0.008,
ki ¼ 0.006 and kd ¼ 0.0005, while kp ¼ 0.008, ki ¼ 0.0002 and kd ¼ 0.0005 in the square
tracking of PIP joint. In the RLSESN_PID control, the parameters of PID are the same
as that of the conventional PID. The numbers of input units, internal units and output

Joint MP PIP

Table II. Initial length L0 (mm) 211 232

The physical parameters Initial diameter D0 (mm) 12.26 12.26
of PMs for MP and Initial angle of mesh grid ug0 (deg) 22 22
PIP joints Thickness of rubber sleeve tk (mm) 1.64 1.64

Name Model Performance Manufacturer

Mute air compressor FB-0.017/7 Rating exhaust pressure: Shanghai Jiebao Co.,
0.7 Mpa Ltd
Electromagnetic ITV1030- Input: 0-5 V SMC Co., Ltd
proportion valve 211BS Output: 0.005-0.5 Mpa
Pressure regulating valve AW20-02BCG Range: 0.05-0.85 Mpa SMC Co., Ltd
Data acquisition card USB-4716 8 channel DI, 8 channel DO Advantech Co., Ltd
16 channel AI, 2 channel AO
Sampling rate: 200 kS/s
Switching power supply Q-120DE Input: AC 220 V ^ 10 percent Taiwan MEAN WELL
50 Hz
Output: ^ 5 V, ^12 V, ^24 V
Hall-effect angle sensor ED-18-SB- Degree range: 0-3608 Measurement
0050-V-P Output: DC 0-5 V Specialties, Inc.
Bushing mounting torque:
Table III. 10 in-lb max
The main performance Strain gauge force sensor FSR400 Sensing area: 0.200 circle Interlink Electronics
parameters of the Force sensitive rang: 0-10 kg
equipments Others Joints connector, air pipe, etc. SMC Co., Ltd
units are 1, 100 and 1, respectively. g is 0.999, d is 0.0001. The two control algorithms Adaptive control
are, respectively, implemented in the control system. Two control loops run for a robotic
independently for the two PM-TS actuators which drive the MP and the PIP joints to
rotate. The initial lengths of PMs for MP and PIP joints are 211 and 232 mm, hand
respectively. The other parameters of PMs for MP and PIP joints are the same. The
initial diameter is 12.26 mm, the initial angle of mesh grid is 228, and the thickness of
rubber sleeve is 1.64 mm. The sampling time Ts is 0.04 s. The software was developed 103
by using Visual Cþ þ .

4.2 Experimental results

In order to further assess the performance of the system and the realization of the
ultimate clinical application, we conduct preliminary clinical trials, as shown in
Figure 10. The user is passive and not working with or against the motion during the
control process.
The sine tracking results of the MP and PIP joints are shown in Figures 11-14,
respectively. At the beginning of the RLSESN_PID control strategy, we use the PID
control and make the ESN update the activation of internal units without the output
weight update from 0 to 4 s (the first period of sin wave). Then the controller is
switched to the RLSESN_PID control with self-adaption. In the actual experiment,

Figure 10.
The sequence of a clinical
rehabilitation trial
(a) (b) (c)

3.2
Reference
3.1 PID
RLSESN-PID
3
MP Joint (rad)

2.9

2.8

2.7

2.6 Figure 11.

The sine trajectory
2.5 tracking control result of
MP joint tracking by
2.4 employing PID and
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
RLSESN_PID
Time (s)
IJICC 0.2
PID
5,1 0.15 RLSESN-PID

0.1

MP Joint Error (rad)

0.05
104
0

–0.05

Figure 12. –0.1

Comparison of the sine
trajectory tracking errors –0.15
of MP joint tracking by
employing PID and –0.2
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
RLSESN_PID
Time (s)

3.3
Reference
3.15 PID
RLSESN-PID
3
PIP Joint (rad)

2.85

2.7

2.55

Figure 13. 2.4

The sine trajectory
tracking control result 2.25
of PIP joint tracking by
employing PID and 2.1
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
RLSESN_PID
Time (s)

after about the first ten control periods (10*Ts, Ts is the sampling time), the output of
ESN presents a good performance. However, we still select the end of the first period of
sin wave as the switch time for the following reasons:
. To conveniently compare the performance of the PID control and the
RSLESN-based PID control. In the first period of sin wave, we can investigate
the performance of PID, while in the other time we can investigate the
performance of RSLESN_PID control.
.
To provide enough time for updating the activation of ESN internal units and to
obtain enough input history for using short-term memory capability of ESN.
 0.2 Adaptive control
PID
0.15 RLSESN-PID for a robotic
hand
0.1
PIP Joint Error (rad)

0.05
105
0

–0.05

–0.1 Figure 14.

Comparison of the sine
–0.15 trajectory tracking errors
of PIP joint tracking by
–0.2 employing PID and
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 RLSESN_PID
Time (s)

Note that the sine tracking error of PIP is a bit bigger than that of MP. The main
reasons are listed as following:
. The main body of PIP is more complex than that of MP. The influence cannot be
eliminated completely in the control system.
.
The mass of PIP is lighter than that of MP. It produces more influence affected
by PM-TS actuator to the control accuracy of PIP.

Through sine trajectory tracking, it is shown that the control accuracy of

the RLSESN_PID is satisfactory. For the verification of response speed of the
RLSESN_PID, square trajectory tracking of PM system is carried out. The square
tracking results of the MP and PIP joints by employing PID and RLSESN_PID
are shown in Figures 15-18. From the comparison of the square tracking result, the
RLSESN_PID control algorithm is superior to the conventional PID in response speed.
Through the experiment, in sine trajectory tracking, it shows that the RLSESN_PID
control algorithm has good tracking accuracy, especially in the turning of tracking
curve. Besides, in square trajectory tracking, the RLSESN_PID control algorithm can
respond rapidly to the desired target value. The results demonstrate the effectiveness
of RLSESN_PID control algorithm as well as the validity of the novel wearable
rehabilitation robotic hand driven by PM-TS actuators.

5. Discussion and conclusion

In summary, the major contributions of the study can be listed as follows:
.
A new PM-TS actuator configuration that uses a PM and a TS for bi-directional
movement of joint is proposed. This proposed actuator is more easily-realized
and compact than traditional actuators composed of PMs. Further, this
arrangement requires less cost and fewer actuators to be controlled.
.
By utilizing the new PM-TS actuator, a novel wearable robotic hand for
rehabilitation training is designed, and we implement the control of the
rehabilitation robotic hand by integrating the sensor system with VR.
IJICC 3.2
Reference
5,1 3.1 PID
ESN-PID
3

MP Joint (rad)
2.9
106
2.8

2.7

Figure 15. 2.6

The square trajectory
tracking control result 2.5
of MP joint tracking by
employing PID and 2.4
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
RLSESN_PID
Time (s)

0.7
PID
0.55 ESN-PID

0.4
MP Joint Error (rad)

0.25

0.1

–0.05

Figure 16. –0.2

Comparison of the square
trajectory tracking errors –0.35
of MP joint tracking by
employing PID and –0.5
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
RLSESN_PID
Time (s)

.
To realize the high-accurate tracking control of the robotic hand, the
RLSESN_PID control is proposed, even though the plant model is unknown.
The results demonstrate that the novel rehabilitation robotic hand driven by
PM-TS actuators is effective and the RLSESN_PID control has better
performance than the PID control.

The future work is to explore human-robot interaction based on motion intention,

which encourages patients to exert their own voluntary efforts during task-oriented
rehabilitation training.
 3.2 Adaptive control
Reference
3.1 PID
for a robotic
ESN-PID hand
3
PIP Joint (rad)

2.9
107
2.8

2.7

2.6
Figure 17.
The square trajectory
2.5 tracking control result of
PIP joint tracking by
2.4 employing PID and
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
RLSESN_PID
Time (s)

0.7
PID
0.55 ESN-PID

0.4
PIP Joint Error (rad)

0.25

0.1

–0.05

–0.2 Figure 18.

Comparison of the square
–0.35 trajectory tracking errors
of PIP joint tracking by
–0.5 employing PID and
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
RLSESN_PID
Time (s)

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About the authors

Jun Wu received his BS in Automation from East China Jiaotong University in

2005, and MS degree in Control Theory and Control Engineering from Wuhan
University of Technology in 2008. He is currently a PhD candidate of the
Department of Control Science and Engineering at Huazhong University of
Science and Technology. His main research interests include rehabilitation robot,
neural network based intelligent and optimal control, and system identification.

Jian Huang graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology

(HUST), China in 1997 and received the Master of Engineering degree from HUST
in 2000. He received his PhD from HUST in 2005. From 2006 to 2008, he was a
Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Micro-Nano System Engineering
and Department of Mechano-Informatics and Systems, Nagoya University, Japan.
He is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Control Science and
Engineering, HUST. His main research interests include rehabilitation robots,
robotic assembly, networked control systems and bioinformatics.

Yongji Wang received his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from

Shanghai Railway University, Shanghai, PR China, and his MS degree and PhD
in Automation from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan,
PR China, in 1982, 1984 and 1990, respectively. Since 1984, he has been with
Huazhong University of Science and Technology, where he is currently a
Professor of Electrical Engineering. His main interest is in intelligent control,
and he has done research in neural network control, predictive control
IJICC and adaptive control. He is a member of IEEE, USA, the President of Hubei Automation
Association, China, a standing member of the council of the Electric Automation Committee of
5,1 Chinese Automation Society and a member of the council of Intelligent Robot Committee of
Chinese Artificial Intelligence Society. He is an Area Editor (Asia and Pacific) of Int. J. of
Modelling, Identification and Control. Yongji Wang is the corresponding author and can be
contacted at: wangyjch@mail.hust.edu.cn

110 Kexin Xing received his BS in Automation from Wuhan University of Science
and Technology, Wuhan, PR China, in 1999, the MS degree and the PhD in
Control Science and Engineering from Huazhong University of Science and
Technology, Wuhan, PR China, in 2006 and 2010, respectively. Since 2010, he
has been with Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, PR China, where
he is currently a Lecturer in the College of Information Engineering. His
research interests include motor control and image process.

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