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Evolutionary Optimization Of Ground Reaction Force For A Prosthetic Leg Testing Robot
2014 American Control Conference (ACC)
  • Ron Davis, Casco
  • Hanz Richter, Cleveland State University
  • Dan Simon, Cleveland State University
  • Antonie van den Bogert, Cleveland State University
ORCID ID
van den Bogert, Antonie J/0000-0002-3791-3749
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publication Date
1-1-2014
Abstract

Transfemoral amputees modify their gait in order to compensate for their prosthetic leg. This compensation causes harmful secondary physical conditions due to an over-dependence on the intact limb and deficiencies of the prosthesis. Even with more advanced prostheses, amputees still have to alter their gait to compensate for the prosthesis. We present a novel way to quantify how much an amputee has to compensate for a prosthetic leg. We train a newly-developed prosthetic leg testing robot to walk with a prosthesis using an evolutionary algorithm called biogeography-based optimization (BBO). The robot is initially commanded to follow able-bodied hip and thigh trajectories, and BBO then modifies these reference inputs. We adjust the reference inputs to minimize the error between the ground reaction force (GRF) of able-bodied gait data, and that of the robot while walking with the prosthesis. Experimental results show a 62% decrease in the GRF error, effectively demonstrating the robot's compensation for the prosthesis.

DOI
10.1109/ACC.2014.6858812
Citation Information
Ron Davis, Hanz Richter, Dan Simon and Antonie van den Bogert. "Evolutionary Optimization Of Ground Reaction Force For A Prosthetic Leg Testing Robot" 2014 American Control Conference (ACC) (2014) p. 4081 - 4086 ISSN: 0743-1619
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/dan_simon/137/