Contacts: Marta Gandolla, Andrea Dal Prete, Ali KhalilianMotamed Bonab
Location: Politecnico di Milano (Bovisa Campus) – Scuola Sant’Anna di Pisa
Motivation of the study. This thesis, developed within a collaboration between Politecnico di Milano and Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, focuses on adaptive control strategies for a hybrid soft–rigid elbow exosuit. The project aims to estimate user biomechanical impedance from sensor data and use it to fine-tune assistance in real time, contributing to more adaptive and user-aware exosuit systems for rehabilitation and load-carrying applications.
Objective. This thesis aims to develop a real-time adaptive control strategy for an elbow exosuit, adjusting admittance controller parameters based on estimated human arm impedance to ensure stable and transparent interaction, with a particular focus on discomfort. Unlike conventional approaches that only tune damping, the work will co-tune stiffness and damping using a principled impedance-based model. The project includes developing an interaction model with passivity analysis, implementing EMG-based impedance estimation, and integrating these into an adaptive controller. The system will be validated on an exosuit with human-subject experiments to assess stability, transparency, and user comfort.
Things to know (if you agree to start the thesis):
- We will share codes through GitHub to continuously share and keep correct versioning for the code.
- You will need to write the thesis using Overleaf (template shared by the supervisor).
- You will need to accept the invitation to the shared folder by the supervisor and place there all ORDERED material of the thesis (e.g., relevant literature, relevant code, relevant data, etc.). This folder will be your Delivery pack before graduation.
- You will be included in the biomecc team meetings where we discuss experimental protocols and ongoing projects with the lab team.
- You will need to have regular meetings with supervisors.
- Thesis duration is approximately 6-9 months. You’ll be required to respect the timeline at the best of your possibilities.
- This thesis requires relocation to the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna campus in Pisa for most of the project.