Development of Artificial Foot of Active Transfemoral Prosthesis System using Topology Optimization

초록

This paper presents the design and optimization of the artificial foot of the active transfemoral prosthesis system. As the prosthesis leg should work according to the intention of the user, the artificial foot is used as a sensor to measure gait cycle. In order to estimate the gait cycle, strain gauges have been located heel and toe of the artificial foot to measure the loads on each part, separately. The locations of strain gauges have been determined by the result of finite element analysis. As the weight of the artificial foot is one of the important factors for users, the topology optimization is conducted to draw an optimized model that can stand the weight of the user with minimum volume. After the optimization, the finite element analysis has been conducted to verify the stability. Finally, the signals from artificial foot have been acquired by the experimental method to verify the gait cycle. Furthermore, the analysis result and experimental result have been compared to verify the reliability of analysis using the acquired signals