title: Complementary limb motion estimation for the control of active knee prostheses.
abstract: To restore walking after transfemoral amputation, various actuated exoprostheses have been developed, which control the knee torque actively or via variable damping. In both cases, an important issue is to find the appropriate control that enables user-dominated gait. Recently, we suggested a generic method to deduce intended motion of impaired or amputated limbs from residual human body motion. Based on interjoint coordination in physiological gait, statistical regression is used to estimate missing motion. In a pilot study, this complementary limb motion estimation (CLME) strategy is applied to control an active knee exoprosthesis. A motor-driven prosthetic knee with one degree of freedom has been realized, and one above-knee amputee has used it with CLME. Performed tasks are walking on a treadmill and alternating stair ascent and descent. The subject was able to walk on the treadmill at varying speeds, but needed assistance with the stairs, especially to descend. The promising results with CLME are compared with the subject's performance with her own prosthesis, the C-Leg from Otto Bock.
authors.affiliation: Sensory-Motor Systems Lab, Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. hvallery@ethz.ch
authors.forename: Heike
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Vallery
authors.forename: Rainer
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Burgkart
authors.forename: Cornelia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hartmann
authors.forename: Jürgen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mitternacht
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Riener
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Buss
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000672:Amputation Stumps / Q000503:physiopathology*; D000674:Amputees / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D004599:Electric Stimulation Therapy / Q000295:instrumentation*; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D006801:Humans; D007719:Knee Joint / Q000503:physiopathology*; D007720:Knee Prosthesis; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement; D011474:Prosthesis Design; D013813:Therapy, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*