Identification of gait-cycle phases for prosthesis control

The major problem with transfemoral prostheses is their capacity to compensate for the loss of the knee joint. The identification of gait-cycle phases plays an important role in the control of these prostheses. Such control is completely up to the patient in passive prostheses or partly facilitated by the prosthesis in semiactive prostheses. In both cases, the patient recovers his/her walking ability through a suitable rehabilitation procedure that aims at recreating proprioception in the patient. Understanding proprioception passes through the identification of conditions and parameters that make the patient aware of lower-limb body segments’ postures, and the recognition of the current gait-cycle phase/period is the first step of this awareness. Here, a proposal is presented for the identification of the gait-cycle phases/periods under different walking conditions together with a control logic for a possible active/semiactive prosthesis. The proposal is based on the detection of different gait-cycle events as well as on different walking conditions through a load sensor, which is implemented by analyzing the variations in some gait parameters. The validation of the proposed method is done by using gait-cycle data present in the literature. The proposal assumes the prosthesis is equipped with an energy-storing foot without mobility.