A conceptual design and control of a novel powered ankle–foot prosthesis (RoMicP™) for heavy amputees
Document Type
Conference Item
Publication Date
1-1-2022
Abstract
A novel powered ankle–foot prosthesis (RoMicP™) is designed for heavy amputees. A novel elastic actuator, namely, a unidirectional parallel elastic actuator with series elastic element (SE+UPEA), is implemented by the employment of a harmonic reducer and a two-level cable-drive system and the application of planar torsional springs. The results of mechanical design declare that the designed structure can achieve outstanding performance on both the height of installation position and the motion range of the ankle joint. The mass of all mechanical components can meet the requirements of design. A double-loop impedance control system is developed with two constant parameters and two time-varying parameters. With optimal parameters of parallel and series springs and tuned parameters of the control system, RoMicP™ is verified by simulation under different loads. The simulation results show that the performance is remarkable in tracking the ankle position reference with small errors during walking on level ground, where the torque load on the ankle is equivalent to that of an amputee whose weight is 100 kg. © 2022, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
Keywords
Actuators, Artificial limbs, Control systems, Cable drive system, Design and control, Elastic actuators, Elastic element, Installation position, Mechanical design, Motion range, Performance, Powered ankle–foot prosthesis, Torsional springs, Conceptual design
Divisions
biomedengine
Publication Title
IFMBE Proceedings
Volume
86
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Event Title
6th Kuala Lumpur International Conference on Biomedical Engineering, BioMed 2021
Event Location
Virtual, Online
Event Dates
28-29 July 2021
Event Type
conference