Modeling and control of a cable-driven series elastic actuator

TL;DR

This paper presents a new model and control strategy for a cable-driven series elastic actuator, demonstrating improved robustness over traditional methods through simulation results.

Contribution

It introduces a novel cable-driven SEA model and applies a 2-DOF control approach, enhancing torque control robustness.

Findings

2-DOF control outperforms PD control in robustness

The proposed model accurately represents the cable-driven SEA

Simulation confirms improved torque control performance

Abstract

Series elastic actuators (SEA) are playing an increasingly important role in the fields of physical human-robot interaction. This paper focuses on the modeling and control of a cable-driven SEA. First, the scheme of the cable-driven SEA has been proposed, and a velocity controlled DC motor has been used as its power source. Based on this, the model of the cable-driven SEA has been built up. Further, a two degrees of freedom (2-DOF) control approach has been employed to control the output torque. Simulation results have shown that the 2-DOF method has achieved better robust performance than the PD method.