Event-Based, Intermittent, Discrete Adaptive Control for Speed Regulation of Artificial Legs

For artificial legs that are used in legged robots, exoskeletons, and prostheses, it suffices to achieve velocity regulation at a few key instants of swing rather than tight trajectory tracking. Here, we advertise an event-based, intermittent, discrete controller to enable set-point regulation for problems that are traditionally posed as trajectory following. We measure the system state at prior-chosen instants known as events (e.g., vertically downward position), and we turn on the controller intermittently based on the regulation errors at the set point. The controller is truly discrete, as these measurements and controls occur at the time scale of the system to be controlled. To enable set-point regulation in the presence of uncertainty, we use the errors to tune the model parameters. We demonstrate the method in the velocity control of an artificial leg, a simple pendulum, with up to 50% mass uncertainty. Starting with a 100% regulation error, we achieve velocity regulation of up to 10% in about five swings with only one measurement per swing.