The invention relates to a damping control method, and more particularly, to a damping control method for lower-limb prosthesis.
According to the statistics of China Disabled Persons' Federation in 2012, China has more than 20,000,000 amputees. Limb loss has brought them lots of inconveniences to their daily living and deteriorate their life quality. Lower-limb prostheses help the transtibial amputees restore their ability to stand and walk, and can significantly improve their life quality. Currently the commercial transtibial prostheses can be classified into two categories according to the ankle angle adjustment ability: the fixed-ankle prostheses and the adjustable-ankle prostheses. Fixed-ankle prostheses can help the wearer to support their body, but cannot mimic the dynamic characteristics of the normal ankle. Adjustable-ankle prostheses can adjust the ankle angle within a predefined range as the normal ankle, but their ankle impedance is usually determined by the mechanical structure and prosthesis material, and cannot be adjusted according to different walking speeds and terrains. Consequently, amputees may suffer from asymmetric gait patterns and decreased walking stabilities when walks on ramps and stairs with these kinds of prostheses.
To deal with speed and terrain variations, the ankle should be able to modulate the joint impedance. Patent CN101785716B has presented a hydraulic bionic ankle prosthesis, which controls the opening size of the oil fluid tube with a throttle valve, and consequently controls the flow resistance of the fluid and the joint rotation impedance. Patent CN101856283B has presented a pneumatic ankle prosthesis, which controls the opening size of an air cylinder with a stepping motor to control the joint impedance. Both the hydraulic and pneumatic prostheses above can controls the ankle impedance, but it requires adding damping control components in addition to the main mechanical structure, which makes the prosthesis design more complicated. Moreover, there are risks of fluid or air leakage for these kinds of designs during long time operation.
To overcome the above drawbacks, the invention presents a new damping control method for lower-limb prostheses, which has simple structure, high stability, and requires no additional components.
To achieve the above objectives, the invention is realized with the following technical schemes. A damping control method for lower-limb prosthesis, which is characterized by: (1) Isolate the motor from the driving voltage, and make the motor to function as a generator; (2) The generator generates induced voltage from the joint rotation that resulted from the locomotion of human's CoM (Center of Mass); (3) Transform the alternating induced voltage to direct-current voltage with a full-bridge rectification circuit that made of Schottky diodes; The Schottky diodes can also be replaced by the “ideal” diodes that made of MOSFETs to decrease the voltage drop; (4) Connect the output terminals of the rectification circuit with a controlled switch such as transistors or MOSFETs to form a closed circuit, and generates induced current from the induced voltage; (5) Control the on-off ratio of the switch with the Pulse-Width-Modulation (PWM) signal to generate controllable motor current, which will result in controllable braking torque under the magnet field of the motor.
In step (3), the MOSFET is preferred to be connected with the output terminal of the full-bridge rectification circuit.
The full-bridge rectification circuit is made of six diodes. The inputs of the rectification circuit is the induced alternating voltage from the three phases of the motor (A, B, C). The positive output of the rectification circuit is connected with the drain terminal of the MOSFET, while the negative output is connected with the source terminal of the MOSFET. The PWM control signal is connected with the gate terminal of the MOSFET.
Thanks to the technical schemes described above, the invention has several advantages:
1. The invention generates damping with different kinds of small-size electronic components such as transistors, MOSFETs, and diodes from the motor rotation, and requires no additional mechanical components, which simplifies the mechanical design of the prosthesis.
2. The invention controls the damping with the Pulse-Width-Modulation (PWM) signal, which has better precision and is easier to implement than controlling a throttle valve with stepping motors.
3. The invention generates damping from the energy of human locomotion instead of external energy source such as a battery, which makes the invention quite energy efficient.
The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the invention. The drawings illustrate embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
The implementation process of the proposed invention will be described in detail in the following session.
One gait cycle of human locomotion can be divided into different gait phases. According to whether the foot is on the ground or not, the gait cycle can be divided into stance phase when the foot is on the ground, and swing phase when the foot is off the ground. This invention mainly concentrates on the period from heel-strike to the moment when the ankle reaches the maximal dorsiflexion. This period is essential for terrain adaptation, when the ankle is driven to rotate by the external force from human locomotion. The detailed implementation process is shown in
Isolate the driving motor of the main transmission structure from the driving voltage, and make the motor to function as a generator;
The generator generates induced voltage from the joint rotation that resulted from the locomotion of human's CoM (Center of Mass);
Transform the alternating induced voltage to direct-current voltage with a full-bridge rectification circuit that made of Schottky diodes; The Schottky diodes can also be replaced by the “ideal” diodes that are made of MOSFETs to decrease the voltage drop;
Connect the output terminals of the rectification circuit with a controlled switch such as transistors or MOSFETs to form a closed circuit, and generates induced current from the induced voltage;
Control the on-off ratio of the switch with the Pulse-Width-Modulation (PWM) signal to generate controllable motor current, which will result in controllable braking torque under the magnet field of the motor.
The rectification circuit of step 3) is mainly made of six diodes (D1˜D6) shown in
In summary, from the moment of heel-strike to the moment when the ankle reaches the maximal dorsiflexion angle, the ankle joint is driven to rotate passively and behaves as a generator. Rotation of the generator generates induced voltage, which is firstly rectified by the rectification circuit, and then transformed to controllable induced current by a controlled switch made of MOSFETs. The induced current will generate braking torque that prevents the ankle from rotating, thus enable a smooth locomotion of the body CoM.
The embodiments that have been described above are merely illustrative of and not restrictive on the broad invention. It will be understood to those skilled in the art that various modifications can be made to the structure, operation method and manufacture of the invention without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. Accordingly, the invention covers the modifications and variations of this invention that fall within the scope of the claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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201410479753.5 | Sep 2014 | CN | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/CN2014/000936 | 10/21/2014 | WO | 00 |