Design and Implementation of the Powered Self-Contained AMPRO Prostheses

Abstract

This thesis presents a complete methodology for translating robotic walking to powered prostheses, and demonstrates this framework on two novel custom built powered prostheses, AMPRO. Motivated by methods that have successfully generated dynamically stable walking gaits on bipedal robots, reference human locomotion data is collected via Inertial Measurement Units (IMU) and stable walking gaits are generated using the framework of human-inspired optimization and control. Next two novel transfemoral protheses are designed and custom built based on the understanding obtained from the collection of human data and gait generation. For experimental realization, the IMUs are mounted on the healthy human leg to estimate human intention during walking on-line, and serves as the feedback interaction point between human and prosthesis. The end result is the experimental verification of the proposed methodology in achieving stable and robust locomotion on a powered prosthesis. Furthermore it is concluded that reducing the weight of AMPRO I, through the design of AMPRO II, improves the performance of the prosthesis and comfort of the human subject.