skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Search for: All records

Award ID contains: 1734559

Note: When clicking on a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number, you will be taken to an external site maintained by the publisher. Some full text articles may not yet be available without a charge during the embargo (administrative interval).
What is a DOI Number?

Some links on this page may take you to non-federal websites. Their policies may differ from this site.

  1. Avoiding obstacles poses a significant challenge for amputees using mechanically-passive transfemoral prosthetic limbs due to their lack of direct knee control. In contrast, powered prostheses can potentially improve obstacle avoidance via their ability to add energy to the system. In past work, researchers have proposed stumble recovery systems for powered prosthetic limbs that provide assistance in the event of a trip. However, these systems only aid recovery after an obstacle has disrupted the user's gait and do not proactively help the amputee avoid obstacles. To address this problem, we designed an adaptive system that learns online to use kinematic data from the prosthetic limb to detect the user's obstacle avoidance intent in early swing. When the system detects an obstacle, it alters the planned swing trajectory to help avoid trips. Additionally, the system uses a regression model to predict the required knee flexion angle for the trip response. We validated the system by comparing obstacle avoidance success rates with and without the obstacle avoidance system. For a non-amputee subject wearing the prosthesis through an adapter, the trip avoidance system improved the obstacle negotiation success rate from 37% to 89%, while an amputee subject improved his success rate from 35% to 71% when compared to utilizing minimum jerk trajectories for the knee and ankle joints. 
    more » « less