Development of a Multiple Degree of Freedom Knee Disarticulation Prosthesis with Active Leg Length Variation

This paper presents a novel design for a knee disarticulation prosthesis. In this design, three hydraulic cylinders form the supporting structure and provide the damping effect at the same time. That way the novel knee joint offers two fundamental advantages compared to the state of the art. First, the combination of a supporting structure and damping element reduces the weight of the prosthesis. Secondly, the use of several cylinders allows the actuation of further degrees of freedom. Additional degrees of freedom can be used to vary the leg length within the gait cycle and hence to optimize the gait behavior.