Adapting Biomimetic Kinematics for Controlling the Össur Power Knee over Inclines
Despite promising benefits for people with limb loss, powered multi-joint prostheses from the research field have not been translated into the clinical space. Commercial powered knee prostheses like the Össur Power Knee are paired with passive feet which lack the range of motion of biological ankle joints, especially on steep inclines. This discrepancy prevents the direct translation of emerging biomimetic control methods for powered knee-ankle prostheses, which implicitly assume both joints exhibit normative biomechanics. To enable commercial prostheses to benefit from biomimetic control methods on inclines, we adapted a continuous knee kinematic model to produce substantial benefits compared to a baseline controller that only tracks able-bodied knee trajectories. Level-ground walking performance is similar to existing methods, and on steep inclines, prosthesis load-bearing and center of pressure progression are restored to near-normative levels. These results show a promising pathway towards translation of biomimetic control methods onto existing commercial hardware, allowing near-term impacts with tangible benefits for prosthesis users.
This is supplemental multimedia for the upcoming paper:
C. A. Seelhoff, T. K. Best, and R. Gregg, “Adapting Biomimetic Kinematics for Controlling a Powered-Knee, Passive-Ankle Prosthesis Across Inclines,” in IEEE Int. Conf. Rehab. Robotics, 2025.