MEASURING EQUIPMENT IN THE RESEARCH AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF HYDRAULIC ABOVE - KNEE PROSTHESIS

Climbing the stairs in natural manner still presents a big problem for an amputee using commercial above-knee (AK) prosthesis. The main problem with common AK prostheses is the lack of knee and ankle joints, since climbing the stairs requires overcoming large forces and moments. The main aim of the project of developing the new hydraulic AK prosthesis is to find a way to enable unilateral trans-femoral (TF) amputees to climb the stairs in as much as possible natural manner by developing prosthesis with externally powered knee and ankle joints. In order to test prosthesis functionality, various experiments need to be conducted, and for that purpose motion measuring equipment is needed. The equipment at disposal is TrakSTAR WIDE-RANGE. As this measuring equipment will be used for the first time for testing the prosthesis, it is necessary to test it prior to using it in final experiments. For that purpose preliminary test was done by simulating climbing the stairs of sound person.