Electric-Energetic Consequences of Springs in Lower-Extremity Powered Prostheses on Varied Terrain

摘要: We present electric-energy consequences from the primary mechanical design trade-offs in lower-extremity, knee and ankle powered prostheses walking on varied terrain. Previous work has studied level-ground running, but not yet examined influence of parameters large range motion tasks such as stair ascent descent. There are four main hardware components commonly implemented bionic ankles knees that can be tuned to achieve desired performance: motor, reduction ratio N, series spring stiffness $\mathrm{K}_{\mathrm{s}}$, parallel $\mathrm{K}_{\mathrm{p}}$. The allowed joint is a fifth parameter strongly affect electric energy consumption. Using kinematically clamped analysis we evaluate cost transport (eCOT) for descent addition levelground walking. Results show springs (PS) improve energetics costly stairs. Variable transmissions combined with PS more than simply limiting motion, while does benefit greatly this complexity.