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Data-Driven Variable Impedance Control of a Powered Knee-Ankle Prosthesis for Adaptive Speed and Incline Walking.

T Kevin BestCara Gonzalez WelkerElliott J RouseRobert D Gregg
Published in: IEEE transactions on robotics : a publication of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (2023)
Most impedance-based walking controllers for powered knee-ankle prostheses use a finite state machine with dozens of user-specific parameters that require manual tuning by technical experts. These parameters are only appropriate near the task ( e.g ., walking speed and incline) at which they were tuned, necessitating many different parameter sets for variable-task walking. In contrast, this paper presents a data-driven, phase-based controller for variable-task walking that uses continuously-variable impedance control during stance and kinematic control during swing to enable biomimetic locomotion. After generating a data-driven model of variable joint impedance with convex optimization, we implement a novel task-invariant phase variable and real-time estimates of speed and incline to enable autonomous task adaptation. Experiments with above-knee amputee participants (N=2) show that our data-driven controller 1) features highly-linear phase estimates and accurate task estimates, 2) produces biomimetic kinematic and kinetic trends as task varies, leading to low errors relative to able-bodied references, and 3) produces biomimetic joint work and cadence trends as task varies. We show that the presented controller meets and often exceeds the performance of a benchmark finite state machine controller for our two participants, without requiring manual impedance tuning.
Keyphrases
  • total knee arthroplasty
  • lower limb
  • knee osteoarthritis
  • deep learning
  • emergency department
  • high resolution
  • mass spectrometry
  • patient safety
  • magnetic resonance imaging
  • upper limb