User-feedback based robust and simplified damping control for affordable transfemoral prosthesis

摘要

The high cost of the powered prosthetic leg is one of the challenges for the lower-limb amputees in developing countries. This Letter presents a robust design and simplified control strategy for a cost-effective magnetorheological-damper-based prosthetic leg for transfemoral amputees. Herein, a simple sensing technique having an accelerometer and two force-sensing resistors is incorporated to obtain the gait events. Based on gait phase detection, a simplified if-else rule-based control strategy is implemented. A comparison between angles of prosthetic and intact knee is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design.