Authors:
Dejiu Chen
;
Suranjan Ram Ottikkutti
and
Kaveh Nazem Tahmasebi
Affiliation:
Unit of Mechatronics and Embedded Control Systems, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 10044 Stockholm, Sweden
Keyword(s):
Mechatronics-twin, Stewart Manipulator, Transfemoral Amputee, Prosthetics, Human-in-the-Loop, Cyber-physical System, Biomechanical Modeling, Force-control.
Abstract:
A Stewart platform is a six-degree-of-freedom parallel manipulator widely used as the motion base for flight simulators, antenna positioning systems, machine tool technology, etc. This work presents a novel mechatronics-twin framework that integrates such a manipulator with advanced biomechanical models and simulations for effective exploration of operational behaviors of prosthetic sockets with amputees. By means of the biomechanical models and simulations, the framework allows the users to first analyze the fundamental operational characteristics of individual amputees according to their specific body geometries, pelvis-femur structures, sizes of transfemoral sockets, etc. Such operational characteristics are then fed to one Stewart platform as the reference control signals for the generation of dynamic loads and behaviors of prosthetic sockets that are otherwise difficult to observe or realize with the real amputees. Experiments in form of integration testing show that the propose
d control strategy is capable of generating expected dynamic operational conditions. Currently, the mechatronics-twin framework supports a wide range of biomechanical configurations and the quantification of the respective intra-socket load conditions for socket design optimization and anomaly detection.
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