A prosthetic knee using magnetorhelogical fluid damper for above-knee amputees

A prosthetic knee for above-knee (AK) amputees is categorized into two types; namely a passive and an active type. The passive prosthetic knee is generally made by elastic materials such as carbon fiber reinforced composite material, titanium and etc. The passive prosthetic knee easy to walk. But, it has disadvantages such that a knee joint motion is not similar to ordinary people. On the other hand, the active prosthetic knee can control the knee joint angle effectively because of mechanical actuator and microprocessor. The actuator should generate large damping force to support the weight of human body. But, generating the large torque using small actuator is difficult. To solve this problem, a semi-active type prosthetic knee has been researched. This paper proposes a semi-active prosthetic knee using a flow mode magneto-rheological (MR) damper for AK amputees. The proposed semi-active type prosthetic knee consists of the flow mode MR damper, hinge and prosthetic knee body. In order to support weight of human body, the required energy of MR damper is smaller than actuator of active prosthetic leg. And it can control the knee joint angle by inducing the magnetic field during the stance phase.