April 03, 2019
16:15 - 17:15
Free
Louvain Bionics' Seminar&Coffee
Come, learn and meet our researchers over a drink!
Date of the April edition:
03 April 2019 at 16:15
Title:
Modelling of legged locomotion towards the control of a powered transfemoral prosthesis
Speaker:
Sophie Heins, PhD student (Supervisor: Renaud Ronsse)
Abstract:
Developing mechanical devices to restore natural locomotion for transfemoral amputees raises many challenges, like an efficient control strategy for the prosthesis active joints, flexible and intuitive to use. Simulation is a useful tool to develop new control strategies and anticipate their behavior. This is a critical step before implementing them on prosthetic or orthotic devices and validate them with amputee subjects. This work provides a simulation tool of legged locomotion that was developed with the Robotran software. In this simulation tool, the human body is modelled as a multi-body system, and stable locomotion is achieved by a bio-inspired, reflex-based control strategy involving muscle models. It was inspired by the work of Geyer&Herr (2010).
Then, a new bio-inspired control strategy for walking is proposed. It aims to allow each subject to converge towards individualized walking patterns. This idea deviates from the current tendency for replacing the amputee missing limb, which is the development of biomimetic prostheses, both for the ankle and knee joints. Indeed, the assumption that healthy walking is the best way of walking for lower-limb amputees – or even if healthy walking is attainable by amputees – is still questioned. The proposed strategy relies on adaptive oscillators to capture the periodic characteristics of the gait, and on dynamic movement primitives for continuous adjustment of the control signals. Finally, the application of the proposed control strategy to the control of a transfemoral prosthesis is discussed.
Location:
Seminar room of iMMC's TFL department (b 044) Ground floor of Stévin Building , Place du Levant 2 - Louvain-la-Neuve