A Mode-Switching Strategy for Robotic Gait Assistance Based on a Wearable Wireless Electromagnetic Handle

To address these issues, this paper proposes a mode-switching strategy that combines a wearable wireless electromagnetic handle, a Hierarchical Finite State Machine (HFSM), and a Radial Basis Function–Sliding Mode Controller (RBF–SMC).

First, we design and introduce a wearable wireless electromagnetic handle as the core human–robot state-sensing module. By leveraging low-frequency alternating magnetic fields, it provides real-time 3D localization, velocity, and pose estimation of the target user; its strong penetration through the human body and common occlusions supplies key state variables, reliable mode switching. Second, we construct an HFSM: at the high-level decision layer, the system dynamically switches among forward assistance, lateral cane-style support, and rear monitoring modes to accommodate users with walking abilities at levels II–IV; at the low-level decision layer, the assistive following distance is adaptively adjusted based on the user’s walking speed and trunk inclination.