Analysis of Walking Skill in Stair Ascent based on Inertia Matching and Its Application to Control of Transfemoral Prosthesis
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science:Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
Date (from‐to) : 2013/04 -2016/03
Author : Wada Takahiro; INOUE Koh; SEKIMOTO Masahiro; HOBARA Hiroaki
The purpose of this project was to develop an evaluation method of walking skill in level walking and stair ascending with a transfemoral prosthesis, and to develop passive prostheses that allow amputees to climb up stairs smoothly. Firstly, evaluation indices to quantify closeness between a given whole body motion and its inertial motion, which means no external torque or force. Skills related to the level walking and stair ascending with the prosthesis were characterized based on the effective use of inertial motion. Then, knee motion generation method of the prosthesis was proposed for its control that leveraging the inertial motion. Furthermore, three types of passive transfemoral prostheses that allow the amputee climb up stairs were developed based on the above results. Experimental results demonstrated that our proposed prostheses smoothly achieved from level walking and ascending stairs.