title: Design and energetic evaluation of a prosthetic knee joint actuator with a lockable parallel spring.
abstract: There are disadvantages to existing damping knee prostheses which cause an asymmetric gait and higher metabolic cost during level walking compared to non-amputees. Most existing active knee prostheses which could benefit the amputees use a significant amount of energy and require a considerable motor. In this work, a novel semi-active actuator with a lockable parallel spring for a prosthetic knee joint has been developed and tested. This actuator is able to provide an approximation of the behavior of a healthy knee during most of the gait cycle of level walking. This actuator is expanded with a series-elastic actuator to mimic the full gait cycle and enable its use in other functional tasks like stair climbing and sit-to-stance. The proposed novel actuator reduces the energy consumption for the same trajectory with respect to a compliant or directly-driven prosthetic active knee joint and improves the approximation of healthy knee behavior during level walking compared to passive or variable damping knee prostheses.
authors.affiliation: Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium. Flanders Make, Strategic Research Centre Manufacturing Industry, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Geeroms
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Flynn
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jimenez-Fabian
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Vanderborght
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lefeber
mesh_terms: D000674:Amputees; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D040761:Biomimetic Materials; D005684:Gait / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007719:Knee Joint / Q000502:physiology*; D007720:Knee Prosthesis; D011474:Prosthesis Design; D019415:Torque; D016138:Walking / Q000502:physiology