Wearable Sensor Control of Above-Knee Prosthetic Device

Abstract

Most amputees use passive prostheses, meaning that these devices are not powered in any way and cannot give any additional output of energy to its user. They usually work on using elastic or some other potential energy which is stored during one sequence of gait, and then released in another. However, performing high power demanding tasks, such as stair ascent, presents a problem, because the lack of muscles makes it impossible to produce the required forces. To perform high demanding power activities, prosthesis must be powered, primarily in its main joints -knee and ankle. Review of the literature posed important open questions regarding sensorimotor interaction during human-human interactions that could facilitate the design of human-robot interactions and haptic interfaces for prosthetic design. The goal is to use the leading principles of the human-human interaction in order to define a way in which people could be in contact with robots in a more intuitive and biologically inspired way. In this paper, we present the wearable sensor real time control of newly developed above-knee prosthetic SmartLeg prototype with powered knee and ankle joints. Specialized control unit is developed in order to achieve required kinematics and dynamics to enable it to perform high power demanding activities in a more natural manner, especially stair ascend.