Design of an expert system to automatically calibrate impedance control for powered knee prostheses

Many currently available powered knee prostheses (PKP) use finite state impedance control to operate a prosthetic knee joint. The desired impedance values were usually manually calibrated with trial-and-error in order to enable near-normal walking pattern. However, such a manual approach is inaccurate, time consuming, and impractical. This paper aimed to design an expert system that can tune the control impedance for powered knee prostheses automatically and quickly. The expert system was designed based on fuzzy logic inference (FLI) to match the desired knee motion and gait timing while walking. The developed system was validated on an able-bodied subject wearing a powered prosthesis. Preliminary experimental results demonstrated that the developed expert system can converge the user's knee profile and gait timing to the desired values within 2 minutes. Additionally, after the auto-tuning procedure, the user produced more symmetrical gait. These preliminary results indicate the promise of the designed expert system for quick and accuracy impedance calibration, which can significantly improve the practical value of powered lower limb prosthesis. Continuous engineering efforts are still needed to determine the calibration objectives and validate the expert system.