Design and validation of control techniques for stable and accurate interaction of haptic interfaces and exoskeletons

The human-robot interaction is essential in applications which robots physically interoperate with humans and exchange forces with them. Example of robots that interact with humans are haptic devices and exoskeletons. These devices share some challenges such as the stability of the contract in every condition, the accuracy of the rendered forces and the transparency of the device. The objectives of this research work were the design and the development of control strategies for the  stable haptic rendering and interaction with rehabilitative and assistive exoskeletons. For the haptic rendering,  an automotive gearshift simulator and a control framework to simulate real position/force profiles has been developed. The stability of the system has been improved by control introducing a novel memory based passivity approach. For the exoskeletons, an interaction control has been designed and transparency and force accuracy has been evaluated.