Overview of the development of hydraulic above knee prosthesis

Abstract

This paper presents research and development of hydraulically powered above-knee prosthesis (HAKP) and novel prosthetic foot, in order to enable transfemoral (TF) amputees perform stair ascent and other daily activities in as much as possible natural manner. Functions that need exertion of large forces and moments during locomotion such as walking up stairs and slopes cannot be naturally accomplished by commercially available microprocessor-controlled above-knee (AK) prostheses. Also, such prosthetic devices are expensive and unaffordable for major part of amputee population, so mostly used commercial prostheses are energetically passive devices. Deficiency of passive prosthetic devices is the lack of externally powered joints that could substitute a large number of missing muscles and provide a gait with the kinematics and dynamics similar to that of non-amputees.