Abstract
A walking training robot is proposed to provide stable and comfortable walking supports by reducing body weight load partially and a force control of an arm of walking training robot using sliding mode controller is also proposed. The current gait training apparatus in hospital are ineffective for the difficulty in keeping constant unloading level and for the constraint of patients' free walking. The proposed walking training robot effectively unloads body weight during walking. The walking training robot consists of an unloading manipulator and a mobile platform. The manipulator driven by an electro-mechanical linear mechanism unloads body weight in various levels. The mobile platform is wheel type, which allows patients to walt freely. The developed unloading system has advantages such as low noise level, lightweight, low manufacturing cost and low power consumption. A system model fur the manipulator is established using Lagrange's equation. To unload the weight of the patients, sliding mode control with p-control is adopted. Both control responses with a weight and human walking control responses are analyzed through experimental implementation to demonstrate performance characteristics of the proposed force controller.