A Gait Simulation and Evaluation System for Hip Disarticulation Prostheses

A little volume of lower extremity amputees needs hip disarticulation prostheses (HDPs). This situation makes it hard to invite hip amputees for prostheses test. The traditional evaluations for HDPs mostly refer to the questionnaires from the amputees and lack of quantitative criteria. In this article, we proposed a gait simulation and evaluation (GSE) system for HDPs testing. The GSE system contained a prosthetic thigh simulation robot that could reproduce the trajectory of human movement. We trained the simulation robot to walk with the tested HDPs using an adaptive neural network (ANN) control method. The ANN method was proposed to solve the unstable motion and large trajectory tracking error when the simulation robot was disturbed by the tested HDPs. The gait kinematic and kinetic data were collected to analyze the performance of the tested HDPs. The GSE system provided a stable test environment that opens up new possibilities for the HDPs test under controlled conditions. Note to Practitioners-Most of the prosthetic tests are based on amputees, especially hip disarticulation prostheses (HDPs). This work provides a gait simulation and evaluation system based on the quantified evaluation, which can repeatedly test the prostheses. The testing system improves the efficiency of the development of HDPs and decreases the security of the test with hip amputees. Furthermore, the system has backward compatibility for other lower limb prostheses (prosthetic knee and ankle).