Anderson Anthony J, Hudak Yuri F, Muir Brittney C, Aubin Patrick M
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98116 USA, and also with the Center for Limb Loss and Mobility, VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, WA 98018 USA.
Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98116 USA.
IEEE Trans Med Robot Bionics. 2023 Jun 30;5(3):741-752. doi: 10.1109/TMRB.2023.3291015.
People with transtibial limb loss experience reduced mobility. Intelligent ankle-foot prostheses have the potential to improve quality of life in people with limb loss, but there are scientific, clinical, and commercial barriers that prevent widespread impact. Further research tools and experiments are needed to expand our understanding of how to design and control intelligent prosthetic limbs. We designed and built a robotic ankle-foot prosthesis with off-board actuation and control to serve as a platform for biomechanical lower limb loss research. Our prosthesis fits inside of a shoe during walking and attaches to standard clinical prosthesis componentry, including carbon fiber prosthetic footplates and pyramid adapters. Our novel mechanical architecture implements a custom torsion spring in parallel with the ankle joint to allow for dorsiflexion and plantarflexion torque control with a single off-board actuator. Benchtop tests show that our prosthesis has peak plantarflexion torques greater than 175 Nm and a torque control bandwidth of 6.1 Hz. Walking experiments with two participants with lower limb loss indicate that the prosthesis can achieve low torque tracking errors and push-off power greater than the biological ankle during walking. This device will enable future experiments on amputee gait biomechanics, human-robot interaction, and prosthesis control.
经胫骨肢体缺失的人行动能力会下降。智能踝足假肢有潜力改善肢体缺失者的生活质量，但存在科学、临床和商业方面的障碍，阻碍了其广泛应用。需要进一步的研究工具和实验来加深我们对如何设计和控制智能假肢的理解。我们设计并制造了一种带有外置驱动和控制装置的机器人踝足假肢，作为下肢缺失生物力学研究的平台。我们的假肢在行走时可安装在鞋子内部，并与标准临床假肢部件相连，包括碳纤维假肢脚板和金字塔适配器。我们新颖的机械结构在踝关节处并联了一个定制的扭力弹簧，以便通过单个外置驱动器实现背屈和跖屈扭矩控制。台式测试表明，我们的假肢跖屈峰值扭矩大于175牛米，扭矩控制带宽为6.1赫兹。对两名下肢缺失参与者进行的行走实验表明，该假肢在行走过程中能够实现低扭矩跟踪误差，并且蹬离功率大于生物踝关节。该装置将为未来关于截肢者步态生物力学、人机交互和假肢控制的实验提供支持。
