Biologically Inspired Deadbeat Control of Robotic Leg Prostheses

Recent advances in robotics technology provide great support for robotic leg prostheses to realize full biomechanical functionalities of the contralateral leg. In order to reproduce the biomechanical behaviors of the contralateral leg, this article addresses biologically inspired deadbeat control of robotic leg prostheses under different terrain conditions including level ground, stairs ascent, and descent. The proposed control method is based on the ground reactive force of the contralateral leg during walking. The trajectories of center-of-mass are encoded by the corresponding polynomial splines. Then, the control of the robotic leg prosthesis is designed by replicating the motion of the user's contralateral leg. Compared to most existing results, our approach does not require any preknowledge of the exact physical parameters. Finally, experiments are conducted to show that the prosthesis can help the user walk smoothly under various terrain conditions.