Title :
Design and Evaluation of a Prosthetic Knee Joint Using the Geared Five-Bar Mechanism
Author :
Yuanxi Sun ; Wenjie Ge ; Jia Zheng ; Dianbiao Dong
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Mech. Eng. & Autom., Northwestern Polytech. Univ., Xi´an, China
Abstract :
This paper presents the mechanical design, dynamics analysis and ankle trajectory analysis of a prosthetic knee joint using the geared five-bar mechanism. Compared with traditional four-bar or six-bar mechanisms, the geared five-bar mechanism is better at performing diverse movements and is easy to control. This prosthetic knee joint with the geared five-bar mechanism is capable of fine-tuning its relative instantaneous center of rotation and ankle trajectory. The centrode of this prosthetic knee joint, which is mechanically optimized according to the centrode of human knee joint, is better in the bionic performance than that of a prosthetic knee joint using the four-bar mechanism. Additionally, the stability control of this prosthetic knee joint during the swing and stance phase is achieved by a motor. By adjusting the gear ratio of this prosthetic knee joint, the ankle trajectories of both unilateral and bilateral amputees show less deviations from expected than that of the four-bar knee joint.
Keywords :
biomechanics; prosthetics; ankle trajectory; bilateral amputees; gear ratio; geared live-bar mechanism; prosthetic knee joint; stability control; unilateral amputees; Couplings; Gears; Joints; Knee; Optimization; Prosthetics; Torque; Geared five-bar mechanism; knee joint; prostheses; rehabilitation;
Journal_Title :
Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TNSRE.2015.2401042