Sensor-fault tolerant control of a powered lower limb prosthesis by mixing mode-specific adaptive Kalman filters

Machine learning methods for interfacing humans with machines is an emerging area. Here we propose a novel algorithm for interfacing humans with powered lower limb prostheses for restoring control of naturalistic gait following amputation. Unlike most previous neural machine interfaces, our approach fuses control information from the user with sensor information from the prosthesis to approximate the closed loop behavior of the unimpaired sensorimotor system. We present a Bayesian framework to control an artificial knee by probabilistically mixing of process state estimates from different Kalman filters, each addressing separate regimes of locomotion such as level ground walking, walking up a ramp, and walking down a ramp. We show its utility as a mode classifier that is tolerant to temporary sensor faults which are frequently experienced in practical applications.