Abstract Summary
The objective of this study is to restore a gastrocnemius-like ankle-knee coupling to individuals with lower limb amputation (ILLA), then 1) characterize how different gastrocnemius dynamics (e.g., stiffnesses) affect whole-body gait biomechanics and 2) explore which gastrocnemius behaviors are most beneficial. We have developed a custom-modified robotic emulator system and validated that our system is capable of simulating a broad range of artificial gastrocnemius and powered ankle prosthesis behaviors. Our first set of experiments is getting underway. We will test unilateral, transtibial ILLA while we sweep across a range of stiffness values for a passive artificial gastrocnemius, and also sweep across different ankle prosthesis behaviors (e.g., magnitudes of net work during push-off). At the conference we will summarize robotic hardware development and validation to date, as well as the latest human subject results.
Sign in to ORCID