著者

藤本 浩志 滝田 久芳 有田 道生 小金沢 鋼一 加藤 一郎

出版者

バイオメカニズム学会

雑誌

バイオメカニズム

巻号頁・発行日

vol.9, pp.241-251, 1988

被引用文献数

4 3

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Conventional A/K prostheses have been designed only for level walking, so A/K amputees have been compelled to walk on stairs with unnatural posture. To expand A/K amputees' daily mobility, the goal of this study is to develop an A/K prosthesis which allows amputees to ascend/descend stairs as well as to walk on a flat surface. The WLP-8 R developed in our study featured a mechanism that can generate a powerful moment at the joints large enough to ascend the stairs. First, this paper presents the Hydraulic/Electric Hybrid Actuator composed of a hydraulic power assembly and an electric power assembly to realize level and stairs walking. In level and downstairs walking, the amputee can walk only with the hydraulic power assembly that generates the extension moment of knee joint during a swing phase using the hydraulic power which has been previously accumulated by the passive rotation of the two joints (knee and ankle) during the last stance phase. So no additional power system is necessary as to realize level and downstairs walking. In upstairs walking, the amputee can walk using the Hydraulic/Electric Hybrid Actuator. The electric power is transmitted through the ball-screw driven by the DC motor to the piston-rod of the knee joint, which has also been pushed up by the hydraulic power as well as level walking so that the knee joint is extended by the combined powerful force of hydraulic and electric power. Second, the Automatic Dorsal-Flexion Mechanism that improves the posture during level walking is described. Third, the construction of the WLP-8 R system is described. Performance of amputees wearing the WLP-8 R and walking is described and discussed. Two A/K amputees could walk on a flat surface and stairs like normal subjects. These walking experiments confirmed the applicability of this system.