Design and Characterization of a Compact Rotary Series Elastic

Actuator for Knee Assistance During Overground Walking

Fabrizio Sergi, Dino Accoto, Giorgio Carpino, Nevio Luigi Tagliamonte and Eugenio Guglielmelli
AbstractIn wearable robotics applications, actuators are
required to satisfy strict constraints in terms of safety and
controllability. The introduction of intrinsic compliance can
help to meet both these requirements. However, the high torque
and power necessary for robotic systems for gait assistance
requires the use of custom elements, able to guarantee high
performances with a compact and lightweight design.
This paper presents a rotary Series Elastic Actuator (SEA),
suitable to be used in an active orthosis for knee assistance
during overground walking. The system includes a commercial
at brushless DC motor, a Harmonic Drive gear and a custom-
designed torsion spring.
Spring design has been optimized by means of an iterative
FEM simulations-based process and can be directly connected
to the output shaft, thus guaranteeing high torque delity.
With a total weight of 1.8 kg, it is possible to directly include
the actuator in the frame of a wearable orthosis for knee
exion/extension assistance. The presented design allows to
obtain a large-force bandwidth of 5 Hz and to regulate output
impedance in a range compatible to locomotion assistance of el-
derly subjects with an age-related decay of motor performances.
I. INTRODUCTION
In robots interacting with humans for assistive or rehabili-
tation purposes, traditional stiff and high-precision actuators
are being replaced by systems with intrinsic compliance,
in order to improve the level of adaptability and safety
[1]. In wearable robotics, the assistance to human move-
ments should be imparted by opportunely modulating the
interaction forces, thus avoiding to rigidly move subjects
limbs through prescribed kinematic patterns. The necessity of
stably and robustly regulating human-robot interaction, also
on the basis of the variable level of assistance required by
the subjects, entails the use of actuators operating in an ideal
force (or torque) mode control, with a low output impedance.
Several actuation solutions have been proposed to meet
such requirements [2]. The Series Elastic Actuator (SEA)
[3], [4] is a simple and effective solution, where elasticity
is intentionally introduced in series between a gearmotor
and the load. This allows to decouple motor inertia and
other nonlinearities from the output and to obtain high
delity in force control by measuring the deection of the
elastic element. Physical series elasticity intrinsically limits
the maximum impedance in the whole frequency spectrum:
for external perturbations at frequencies above the actuator
bandwidth, the impedance of the system reduces to the
stiffness of the spring thus avoiding unsafe behaviors.
All the authors are with the Laboratory of Biomedical Robotics and
Biomicrosystems, Center for Integrated Research (CIR), Universit` a Campus
Bio-Medico di Roma, Via

Alvaro del Portillo, 21 - 00128 Roma, Italy.
Corresponding author: fabrizio.sergi@unicampus.it
SEAs were originally employed in bipedal walking and
running robots [5] in which unavoidable high frequency
disturbances due to impacts with the ground must be re-
jected. SEAs are now being widely adopted also in wearable
robotics for gait assistance [6]. In the specic case of actu-
ated orthoses for knee support during walking, SEA architec-
tures have been employed in different implementations, that
can be divided in two categories. The rst category includes
treadmill-based systems such as the one presented in [7]. In
this system, only the elastic element is placed on the knee
orthosis, while a high-power servomotor is mounted on a
frame away from the user and regulates the interaction torque
through Bowden cables. The second category comprises fully
wearable actuation systems, in which the whole actuator
is mounted in the frame of a modied knee orthosis [8],
[9]. The main advantage of remotely-driven series elastic
actuation is the minimization of the mass and inertia added to
the orthosis. Conversely, fully wearable systems are appeal-
ing because they require a less structured environment, and
can constitute an autonomous wearable robotic system for
locomotion assistance. However, there is no known design
which allows to directly include a fully wearable SEA with
a torsion spring in direct drive conguration to provide
assistance to a knee orthosis during walking. For example,
in [8] a linear SEA in triangular conguration was used
to render a desired torque, while in [9] a further reduction
stage was placed between the elastic element and the actuator
output, thus compromising torque rendering delity due to
transmission non-linearities. A direct drive wearable SEA
conguration would nonetheless allow to match both torque
delity and wearability requirements.
This paper presents a novel compact rotary SEA, designed
to provide partial support to knee exion/extension during
walking. The basic requirements of the pursued design are
described in Sections II and the main design choices are
reported in Section III; the control architecture and prototype
characterization are presented in Sections IV and V, while a
discussion and conclusions are presented in Section VI.
II. DESIGN REQUIREMENTS
The SEA presented in this paper is designed to provide
partial support to knee exion/extension during gait in el-
derly subjects with an age-related decay of motor perfor-
mances.
A number of gait features are inuenced by aging, such as
decreased gait velocity, caused by decreased step length [10]
and increased stance time [11]. Elderly people have generally
a more conservative gait pattern than normals, i.e. a lower
preferred walking speed and shorter steps [12]. Considering
the slow-walking data set described in [13], the maximum
instantaneous power exerted by the knee joint is about 40
W with a maximum torque of 29 Nm and an RMS value
equal to 20 Nm. In order to provide an assistive torque equal
to the 30% of the peak torque required during overground
walking, a target of 10 Nm for actuator torque is imposed as
design requirement. However, the reduction in the duration
of the swing phase requires torque control to be fast enough
to provide rapidly changing assistance levels during walking.
To this aim, considering that more than 90% of the power
spectral density of knee torque is in the frequency range
between 0 and 4 Hz (as obtainable from data in [13]), a
minimum bandwidth of 4 Hz is set as a requirement to torque
control.
In SEAs , the compliant element is required to withstand
the maximum output torque supplied by the actuator and
to provide a linear torque vs. rotation relationship both
in static and dynamic conditions. Moreover, such elastic
component should be connected to the load in direct drive
conguration, so to avoid the reduction of force delity
caused by transmissions non-linearities. The target stiffness
value can be selected by trading off between the requirement
of providing a sufciently high intrinsic compliance and
that of obtaining an accurate torque control in a given
frequency bandwidth. Physical stiffness values of SEAs for
locomotion assistance range from 100 to 300 Nmrad
1
[6],
[9], [14], [15]. Both theoretical analyses [4] and our previous
simulation studies [16] show that the aforementioned target
torque control bandwidth can be obtained using a stiffness
of 150 Nmrad
1
, considering realistic velocity and current
limitations for reasonably sized DC motors. Combining such
considerations, a stiffness value of 150 Nmrad
1
is taken as
specication for the series elasticity of the actuator developed
in the present work. Finally, actuator dimensions and weight
must be reduced as much as possible. For our design, we
specied a maximum weight of 2 kg and dimensions of 150
150 200 mm
3
.
III. DESIGN
The design architecture of the developed SEA has been
conceived in order to obtain the highest possible level of
modularity. A commercial 90 W brushless DC motor (Maxon
EC90-at) has been selected, with a weight of 648 g and a
maximum continuous torque of 494 mNm. The electric mo-
tor also includes Hall sensors for current commutation and a
500 counts per turn (cpt) optical incremental encoder Avago
HEDL5540, to measure motor rotation with a resolution of
0.18 deg when using quadrature reading. A Harmonic Drive
gear (CSD-20-50-2A-GR, reduction ratio of 50:1, weight of
130 g) has been included in the design. An ASM magnetic
incremental encoder, composed by a PMIS4 reading sensor
head and a PMIR4 magnetic code wheel, is used to measure
the actuator output with a resolution of 310
3
deg and
allows to estimate spring deection used for SEA torque
control. Fig. 1 depicts a cross section of the nal design.
The overall dimensions are: 120 mm (diameter) 165 mm
Fig. 1. Cross section of rotary SEA. 1: optical incremental encoder, 2: at
DC motor, 3: Harmonic Drive, 4: torsion spring, 5: magnetic incremental
encoder, 6: output shaft. Dimensions: 120 mm (diameter) 165 mm (axial
length). Total mass is 1.8 kg.
(axial length) and the resulting mass is 1.8 kg, thus fullling
the requirements reported in Section II.
A. Custom torsion spring
There are no commercially available and sufciently com-
pact rotary components able to simultaneously fulll both
the torque and stiffness requirements mentioned in Section
II (peak torque: 10 Nm, stiffness: 150 Nmrad
1
).
For this reason a monolithic disc-shaped design has been
pursued in order to minimize weight and dimensions, since
it allows reducing the bulk in the radial direction, still
maintaining an acceptable thickness. This shape implies that
the transfer of torque is between an outer annulus (external
diameter of 85 mm) and an inner annulus (internal diameter
of 12 mm). Compliance is obtained by interposing exible el-
ements between the two rings. The shape and dimensions of
such exible elements were dened through an iterative Fi-
nite Element Method (FEM) simulations-based optimization
process. The morphology selected for the spring comprises
three replications of two couples of arched lamellae, arranged
at 120

. Lamellae provide the required compliance acting

as a curved thin beam mainly undergoing a pure bending
load. Holes on the outer and inner rings allow to connect
the gearmotor output and the SEA output shaft respectively,
thus embodying the SEA architecture.
Static FEM stress-strain analyses (COMSOL Multiphysics
3.5, Comsol AB) have been performed in order to optimize
the mechanical design. In the static analysis, the lateral sur-
face of the outer ring was loaded with a tangential distributed
force applying a desired equivalent torsional moment, while
the inner ring was xed to the ground frame. VACO 180T
(maraging steel 300, Young modulus of 186 GPa) was the
material selected for the strength analysis, due to his high
nominal yield stress of 1.32 GPa and ultimate tensile strength
of 1.35 GPa. In the described conditions, the maximum von
Mises stress as obtained by the FEM simulation under an
6 4 2 0 2 4 6
10
8
6
4
2
0
2
4
6
8
10
Deflection [deg]
T
o
r
q
u
e

[
N

m
]


Experimental data
Linear regression
R
2
=0.997
R
2
=0.994
Fig. 2. Characterization of the torsion spring. Loading and unloading
phases are reported, both for positive and negative deection. R
2
coef-
cients refer to the tting of both positive and negative torque vs. deection
curves to the global stiffness curve, reported in solid line.
applied torsional moment of 10 Nm is 0.93 GPa. Said S.F.
the safety factor, a S.F. of 1.4 is achieved. The resultant
external ring rotation was equal to 0.063 rad, thus implying
a torsional stiffness value, as predicted by FEM simulations,
K
s,FEM
=159 Nmrad
1
.
The spring, shown in Fig. 3, has been manufactured by
Wired Electrical Discharge Machining (WEDM) and under-
went an aging treatment of 4 hours at 482

C, to guarantee
the nominal yield stress value. Total dimensions are 85 mm
for the outer diameter and 6 mm for the thickness.
Experimental characterization of the spring was performed
directly by mounting the spring on the SEA assembly, and
connecting the SEA output shaft to a torque sensor (Lorenz
Messtechnik GmbH DR-2), xed to the test-bed frame. To
avoid spurious forces deriving from radial misalignments
between SEA and sensor shafts, a exible coupling (Rodoex
ATMK60L77) was used. The SEA was commanded to track
a position prole consisting of a sequence of steps (amplitude
0.2 deg, duration 2 s), in both loading and unloading condi-
tions, while the applied torque was measured via the torque
sensor. The resulting torque vs. deection plot is shown in
Fig. 2.
It is possible to observe the presence of a non-negligible
backlash (amplitude: 1 deg), determined by the shaped shaft-
hub coupling of the elastic element. Two one-coefcient
linear regressions, for positive and negative spring deections
were performed. The two calculated regression coefcients
differed in less than 0.5%. The overall stiffness value was
calculated as their average, providing an estimation of spring
stiffness equal to 119 Nm/rad.
The value of K
s
determined experimentally is 22% lower
than the one predicted by FEM simulations. Similar discrep-
ancy (29%) was previously reported by other researchers
using different FEM methods and different geometries [14].
It is worth to note that this discrepancy cannot be inputed to
the series compliance of the characterization setup. Based
on components datasheets, we could determine that the
equivalent series stiffness between the motor and spring
Fig. 3. Picture of the custom torsional spring. Dimensions: 85 mm (external
diameter) and 12 mm (internal ring diameter) 6 mm (axial length). A
shaped shaft-hub coupling is used as connection between the spring internal
ring and the output shaft.
under characterization is around 20 times higher than the
one to be measured.
IV. CONTROL
A. Control hardware
The control hardware includes the following components:
- Maxon EPOS2 50/5 control unit to drive the brushless
DC motor, capable to provide a 45 V constant voltage
and 5 A maximum continuous current.
- National Instruments (NI) CompactRIO-9022 embed-
ded control and acquisition system, which includes a
recongurable Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)
module and an embedded controller running LabVIEW
Real Time (RT) (533 MHz processor, 2 GB non-volatile
storage, 256 MB DDR2 memory). The device also
comprises a NI 9401 digital I/O module to acquire the
quadrature signals from the output incremental encoder,
and a NI 9853 high speed CAN module for communi-
cation with the EPOS2 control unit.
The FPGA module of the CompactRIO system is pro-
grammed to acquire SEA output encoder quadrature signals
Fig. 4. Test-bed used for spring characterization. 1: torque sensor, 2:
exible coupling, 3: SEA.
!"#
%&
'
(
'
(
%&
!
!
!
m
d
!
!
!
m,d
)*+,-.
/*01+*22.+
3.2*/415
/*01+*22.+
!
out
,
!
!
out
%6
&78.9:0/.
/*01+*22.+
'
(
!
out,d
,
!
!
out,d
Fig. 5. SEA torque control scheme. The delivered torque is measured
as = Ks(m out), being out the SEA output angle and m the
gear motor rotation.
m,d
is the desired motor velocity as generated by the
torque controller.
and to execute CAN bus low level communication with the
EPOS2 controller. SEA torque and impedance controllers run
on the RT level on the CompactRIO device, programmed
through LabVIEW RT software using an hosting PC. The
control loop of the SEA runs continuously at 1 kHz.
B. Control architecture
SEA torque regulation is performed by measuring the
deection of the elastic element, i.e. the difference between
the SEA output angle
out
and the gearmotor rotation
m
.
Said K
s
spring stiffness, the torque delivered by the actuator
can be estimated as = K
s
(
m

out
).
The control scheme used in the present work follows
the approach proposed in [17] and [18]. The corresponding
block diagram is reported in Fig. 5. In the implementation
used for this work, the desired velocity command generated
by the torque and impedance controllers, implemented on
the CompactRIO, is transmitted to the velocity controller,
implemented on the EPOS device, through the CAN bus
(CANopen protocol). Both control loops run at 1 kHz.
The measured spring deection signal is ltered through a
2
nd
order lowpass Butterworth lter with a cut-off frequency
of 40 Hz and torque is estimated taking into account the
deadband of the torque vs. deection characteristic intro-
duced by the couplings backlash (ref Fig. 2). The computed
torque is then fed back to the torque controller, closing the
torque control loop. An outer impedance control loop is
then implemented to regulate the interaction of the torque
controlled SEA with the environment.
V. EXPERIMENTAL CHARACTERIZATION
A. Position control
As a preliminary validation of the described design, the
actuator was position-controlled to track a typical knee angle
prole during locomotion, as retrieved from the slow walking
dataset in [13], for a gait cycle duration of 1.6 s, with the
actuator output unloaded. Fig. 6 shows a position regulation
performance in the described conditions, where an RMS
error of 2.7 deg is obtained.
B. Torque control
Torque control performances of the developed SEA were
characterized using the method proposed in [4], which in-
volves the connection of the actuator output shaft to the
Time [s]

o
u
t

[
d
e
g
]


0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
10
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Stance
Conf. int.
Actual
Reference
Fig. 6. SEA position tracking for a typical knee prole during overground
walking (gait cycle duration: 1.6 s), with superimposed condence intervals
(p <0.05). RMS error is 2.7 deg.
ground frame (blocked output conditions). In this cong-
uration, different metrics were considered to measure the
performances of the torque controller, as described in the
following sections.
1) Step response: PI torque controller gains were regu-
lated based on the system response to a step commanded
torque, in order to have an overshoot lower than 5% of the
setpoint and a rise time lower than 10 ms. Fig. 7 shows the
response of the system to commanded steps with different
amplitudes: 3 and 10 Nm. The system responds with a
4% overshoot and with a maximum rise time of 6 ms, for
the largest commanded input. Actuator non-linearities (motor
velocity saturation) in the response to the largest input imply
a 2 ms lag between the rise time calculated at 3 and 10 Nm
and a difference in the overshoot in these two situations.
2) Torque control bandwidth: Torque control bandwidth
is dened as the transfer function between the desired torque

d
and the actual torque delivered by the actuator, when
the output is xed [4]. In the frequency domain, it can be
written as G
tor
(f) = T(f)/T
d
(f), being T(f) and T
d
(f)
the Fourier transforms of and
d
respectively.
The transfer function G
tor
(f) has been estimated using
system identication method, based on the following:

G(f) =
P
uy
(f)
P
uu
(f)
, (1)
being P
uy
(f) the cross-spectral density and P
uu
(f) and
P
yy
(f) the auto-spectral density of the input (u) and output
(y), which in this case are
d
and respectively. The
estimation coherence function Coh(f) is dened as:
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5
2
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
Time [s]
T
o
r
q
u
e

[
N


m
]


Actual
Reference
Fig. 7. Response of the system to torque step commands (amplitude 3
Nm and 10 Nm, with blocked actuator output.
10
1
10
0
10
1
15
10
5
0
5
l
G
t
o
r
(
f
)
l

[
d
B
]
10
1
10
0
10
1
200
150
100
50
0
Frequency [Hz]

G
t
o
r
(
f
)

[
d
e
g
]
Fig. 8. Bode diagram of torque control, desired signal is a Schroeder
multisine, peak amplitude 10 Nm (RMS value: 5.45 Nm). Torque control
bandwidth is 5.3 Hz. At this frequency, the phase lag is 106 deg.
Coh(f) =
|P
uy
(f)|
2
P
yy
(f)P
uu
(f)
. (2)
In order to determine the transfer function G
tor
(f), the
SEA has been stimulated with a Schroeder multisine [19],
with a at power spectral density between 0.1 and 10 Hz,
negligible power content above 10 Hz, and amplitude scaled
to generate a peak desired torque of 10 Nm (corresponding
to a RMS value of 5.45 Nm). Fig. 8 shows the performances
of the implemented controller, demonstrating a bandwidth of
5.3 Hz for the maximum deliverable torque.
C. Impedance control
Characterization of impedance control was performed by
manually perturbing the actuator output shaft through oscil-
latory movements imposed by a human operator grasping the
output link.
The following position- and velocity-dependent torque
eld around the desired kinematic status (
out,d
,

out,d
) was
implemented:

d
(t) = K
v
[
out
(t)
out,d
] c
v
[

out
(t)

out,d
], (3)
10
1
10
0
10
1
0
1
2
3
4
l
Z
(
f
)
l

[
N

d
e
g

1
]
10
1
10
0
10
1
200
180
160
140
120
100
Frequency [Hz]
P
h
a
s
e

[
d
e
g
]


k
s
k
v
=0.25k
s
k
v
=0.5k
s
k
v
=0.75k
s
k
v
=1k
s
Fig. 9. Bode diagram of the estimated transfer function Z(f) =
T(f)

out
(f)
,
when rendering a pure elastic behavior with different elastic constants Kv,
dened as a fraction of the physical spring stiffness constant Ks.
where K
v
and c
v
are the desired virtual stiffness and
damping coefcients. Characterization of the performances
of impedance control was performed in two stages: rst
tackling the problem of rendering a pure stiffness K
v
, and
then rendering a desired damping c
v
. Impedance transfer
function was calculated using the same system identication
technique described in Section V-B, considering
out
as input
signal and as output signal and calculating the transfer
functions Z(f) = T(f)/
out
(f) for stiffness control and
Y (f) = T(f)/
out
(f) for damping control.
1) Stiffness control: In order to assess stiffness regulation
performances, different tests were done, imposing the control
law expressed in (3), by setting
out,d
= 0, c
v
= 0 and

out,d
= 0, and varying K
v
in the range [0.25K
s
, K
s
], with
increments of 0.25K
s
.
Stiffness regulation performances increase with the value
of K
v
. Dening stiffness control bandwidth as the frequency
where

|Z(f)|Kv
Kv

0.5, a minimum bandwidth of 1.5 Hz

is obtained for K
v
= 0.25K
s
, while theoretically innite
bandwidth (limited only by motor thermal limitations) can
be obtained when K
v
= K
s
. At frequencies lower than the
stiffness control bandwidth, the actuator actually behaves as
a pure spring, where the transfer function Z(f) has a phase
lag of -180 deg. Above the stiffness control bandwidth, atten-
uation of torque control is responsible for increased stiffness
and for the reduction in phase lag, thus introducing damping
in the response. At higher frequencies, where the action of
actuator control can be neglected, all curves converge again
to a pure spring-like behavior, with phase lag of -180 deg
and virtual stiffness magnitude close to the stiffness of the
physical spring K
s
.
2) Damping control: A similar protocol was implemented
to assess damping regulation performances, imposing the
control law expressed in (3), by setting
out,d
= 0,
K
v
= 0 and

out,d
= 0, and varying c
v
in the range
[0, 0.4] Nmsdeg
1
, with increments of 0.1 Nmsdeg
1
.
The frequency content of the applied perturbation was neg-
ligible for frequencies above 2 Hz.
The desired damping behavior is obtained up to 1 Hz, with
10
1
10
0
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
l
Y
(
f
)
l

[
N

d
e
g

1
]
10
1
10
0
280
260
240
220
200
180
Frequency [Hz]
P
h
a
s
e

[
d
e
g
]


0 Nmsdeg
1
0.1 Nmsdeg
1
0.2 Nmsdeg
1
0.3 Nmsdeg
1
0.4 Nmsdeg
1
Fig. 10. Bode diagram of the estimated transfer function Y (f) =
T(f)

out
(f)
,
when rendering a pure viscous behavior with different damping constants
cv.
a frequency-independent ratio between torque and velocity
and a 180 deg phase lag. However, the damping value
estimated by system identication is higher than the one
desired, with a discrepancy of 0.075 0.002 Nmsdeg
1
,
due to the parasitic damping of the motor. This demonstrates
that there is an intrinsic value of damping in the system,
that is not compensated by control. However, the measured
discrepancy is more than two orders of magnitude lower
than that of human knee [20], allowing to conclude that this
intrinsic damping does not introduce signicant drawbacks
for the selected application.
VI. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
This paper presented the design of a novel rotary Series
Elastic Actuator (SEA) suitable to be included in a wearable
orthosis for knee assistance. The chosen application eld
poses signicant challenges to the design of an actuator, since
it requires high performances in terms of both amplitude
and bandwidth of torque regulation, and also the addition
of limited mass and inertia in order to minimally perturb
the wearers natural movements. The novelty of the pursued
design consists in the fact that the developed SEA has a
direct-drive custom torsion spring which allows its integra-
tion in a fully wearable orthosis for knee assistance during
overground walking.
The presented design has been carried out with the aim of
fullling a set of requirements dened on the basis of gait
analysis data of target users. A major element of the pursued
design is the torsion spring, which was purposively optimized
and fabricated, since no commercial component would have
been able to provide the desired torque and stiffness prop-
erties in such a compact and lightweight conguration. The
manufactured component has a signicantly lower stiffness
than the one required, probably due to the material actual
elastic modulus being slightly different from the nominal one
used for the FEM simulations. Also fabrication inaccuracies
expectedly contributed to such discrepancy, given the sen-
sitivity of the torsional stiffness to lamellae thickness. The
SEA weighs 1.8 kg, thus allowing to directly include the
actuator on the frame of a wearable knee orthosis.
Performances of the developed prototype have been char-
acterized experimentally using system identication tech-
niques. A velocity-source type torque control scheme allows
to regulate a continuous torque of 10 Nm with a bandwidth
of 5 Hz. Impedance control was also implemented and
performances in response to externally applied perturbations
were measured, demonstrating that the actuator is able to
render virtual stiffness and damping elds in ranges po-
tentially useful in human-robot interaction schemes for gait
assistance. Future work will involve the integration of the
developed actuator in a wearable knee orthosis.
VII. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by the FP7 FET Proactive
Initiative Embodied Intelligence of the European Commis-
sion, project no. ICT-2007.8.5-231451 - EVRYON (EVolving
morphologies for human-Robot sYmbiotic interactiON).
The authors wish to thank B ohler Uddeholm Italia S.p.A.
for the kind availability to supply the maraging steel used in
this work.
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