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Biomechanical Design and Prototyping of a Powered Ankle-Foot Prosthesis

Powered ankle-foot prostheses for walking often have limitations in the range of motion and in push-off power, if compared to a lower limb of a healthy person. A new design of a powered ankle-foot prosthesis is proposed to obtain a wide range of motion and an adequate power for a push-off step. The...

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Autores principales: Alleva, Stefano, Antonelli, Michele Gabrio, Beomonte Zobel, Pierluigi, Durante, Francesco
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7766738/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33352691
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma13245806
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author Alleva, Stefano
Antonelli, Michele Gabrio
Beomonte Zobel, Pierluigi
Durante, Francesco
author_facet Alleva, Stefano
Antonelli, Michele Gabrio
Beomonte Zobel, Pierluigi
Durante, Francesco
author_sort Alleva, Stefano
collection PubMed
description Powered ankle-foot prostheses for walking often have limitations in the range of motion and in push-off power, if compared to a lower limb of a healthy person. A new design of a powered ankle-foot prosthesis is proposed to obtain a wide range of motion and an adequate power for a push-off step. The design methodology for this prosthesis has three points. In the first one, a dimensionless kinematic model of the lower limb in the sagittal plane is built, through an experimental campaign with healthy subjects, to calculate the angles of lower limb during the gait. In the second point a multibody inverse dynamic model of the lower limb is constructed to calculate the foot-ground contact force, its point of application and the ankle torque too, entering as input data the calculated angles of the lower limb in the previous point. The third point requires, as input of the inverse dynamic model, the first dimensioning data of the ankle-foot prosthesis to obtain the load acting on the components of the prosthesis and the angle torque of the actuator during the gait cycle. Finally, an iteration cycle begins with the inverse dynamic model modifying the ankle torque and angle until these quantities during the gait are as close as possible to the physiological quantities. After the mechanical design and the construction of the prototype of the prosthesis, an experimental methodology was used for preliminary validation of the design. The preliminary tests in the laboratory on the prototype alone show that the range of motion of the ankle angle during the gait is close to a healthy person’s: 27.6° vs. 29°. The pushing force of the distal area of the prototype is 1.000 N, instead of 1.600 N, because a budget reduction forced us to choose components for the prototype with lower performance.
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spelling pubmed-77667382020-12-28 Biomechanical Design and Prototyping of a Powered Ankle-Foot Prosthesis Alleva, Stefano Antonelli, Michele Gabrio Beomonte Zobel, Pierluigi Durante, Francesco Materials (Basel) Article Powered ankle-foot prostheses for walking often have limitations in the range of motion and in push-off power, if compared to a lower limb of a healthy person. A new design of a powered ankle-foot prosthesis is proposed to obtain a wide range of motion and an adequate power for a push-off step. The design methodology for this prosthesis has three points. In the first one, a dimensionless kinematic model of the lower limb in the sagittal plane is built, through an experimental campaign with healthy subjects, to calculate the angles of lower limb during the gait. In the second point a multibody inverse dynamic model of the lower limb is constructed to calculate the foot-ground contact force, its point of application and the ankle torque too, entering as input data the calculated angles of the lower limb in the previous point. The third point requires, as input of the inverse dynamic model, the first dimensioning data of the ankle-foot prosthesis to obtain the load acting on the components of the prosthesis and the angle torque of the actuator during the gait cycle. Finally, an iteration cycle begins with the inverse dynamic model modifying the ankle torque and angle until these quantities during the gait are as close as possible to the physiological quantities. After the mechanical design and the construction of the prototype of the prosthesis, an experimental methodology was used for preliminary validation of the design. The preliminary tests in the laboratory on the prototype alone show that the range of motion of the ankle angle during the gait is close to a healthy person’s: 27.6° vs. 29°. The pushing force of the distal area of the prototype is 1.000 N, instead of 1.600 N, because a budget reduction forced us to choose components for the prototype with lower performance. MDPI 2020-12-19 /pmc/articles/PMC7766738/ /pubmed/33352691 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma13245806 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Alleva, Stefano
Antonelli, Michele Gabrio
Beomonte Zobel, Pierluigi
Durante, Francesco
Biomechanical Design and Prototyping of a Powered Ankle-Foot Prosthesis
title Biomechanical Design and Prototyping of a Powered Ankle-Foot Prosthesis
title_full Biomechanical Design and Prototyping of a Powered Ankle-Foot Prosthesis
title_fullStr Biomechanical Design and Prototyping of a Powered Ankle-Foot Prosthesis
title_full_unstemmed Biomechanical Design and Prototyping of a Powered Ankle-Foot Prosthesis
title_short Biomechanical Design and Prototyping of a Powered Ankle-Foot Prosthesis
title_sort biomechanical design and prototyping of a powered ankle-foot prosthesis
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7766738/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33352691
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma13245806
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