On the robust PID adaptive controller for exoskeletons: A particle swarm optimization based approach

International audience; This article proposes a robust PID adaptive controller for nonlinear systems with one or more degrees of freedom (DoF). The adaptive controller aims at minimizing the errors in trajectory tracking without requiring a prior modeling of the targeted nonlinear system. Furthermore, the proposed controller requires only the inputs and outputs of the system. And it is based on modified particle swarm optimization algorithm whose goal is to find the best PID parameters that optimize the execution of desired task by minimizing an objective function. The adaptation by the controller addresses two critical problems: The first problem is the instability of the control signal provided by the convergence phase of the classical PSO algorithm. This behavior adversely affects the lifetime of any actuator and, therefore, is undesirable. The second problem is the stagnation of the classical PSO algorithm after convergence at the immediately found optimal solution. The proposed adaptive PID controller is initially tested in simulation on a dynamical model of a robot manipulator evolving in the vertical plan. Which is followed by experimental tests performed on an actuated joint orthosis worn by human subjects having different morphologies. A comparative study with two other algorithms has been also conducted. Based on the obtained results, we conclude the efficiency of the proposed approach.