Development of a prosthetic ankle-foot and its slope-walking experiments

Most of the existing prosthetic ankle-foot is designed for level-walking, of which ankle angle in the state of the balanced-position is aligned with approximately 90°. When prosthesis users walk on a decline/incline, as the ankle angle aligned for level-walking is unsuitable for slope-walking, even when the users standing straight, the real/front buffer is compressed forcibly and also make the users feel discomfortable. In this manuscript, a prototype of prosthetic ankle-foot is introduced, of which the balanced-position of the prosthetic ankle-foot is adjustable to the inclination of a slope while walking, and as the device is only at work during the swing phase, the consumption of energy is small. In addition, the evaluation on the function and effectiveness of the device were done by the gait experiments.