Online PID-neural network for tracking lower limb rehabilitation exoskeleton angular position

Gait trajectory tracking control is an essential component of a lower limb rehabilitation exoskeleton (LLRE). Meanwhile, the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller remains popular for a variety of applications, including LLRE. Nonetheless, employing PID presents a significant issue, namely determining how to choose or tune the parameters. This paper addresses the LLRE’s hipknee angular position tracking system based on an online PID-NN controller, i.e., a PID controller, whose parameters are online modified by a trained neural network (NN). A proposed framework for designing the PID-NN controller is elaborated. Numerical verifications are carried out by comparing the performance of the PID-based control system, whose parameters have been tuned using Ziegler-Nichols (ZN), without and using NN. Performance comparisons involving the presence of external disturbance are also carried out. The simulation results show that the proposed PID-NN-based control system provides better performance with lower mean squared error (MSE), root mean squared error (RMSE), and mean absolute error (MAE) values.