Title

Design of an Active Ankle-Foot Prosthesis Utilizing a Four-Bar Mechanism

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-2012

Abstract

Thisarticle discusses the design and testing of a powered ankleprosthesis. This new prosthesis mimics nonamputee (normal) ankle moments duringthe stance phase of gait through the use of anoptimized spring loaded four-bar mechanism. A prototype prosthesis based onthe optimization was designed, fabricated, and tested. The experimental resultsachieved 93.3% of the simulated theoretical ankle moment giving substantialevidence that this approach is a viable in designing poweredankle prostheses.

Comments

Journal of Mechanical Design, Volume 134, No. 6, pp 7 pages (June 2012), DOI: 10.1115/1.4006436.