INERTIAL THIGH ANGLE SENSING FOR A SEMI-ACTIVE KNEE PROSTHESIS

We present an application of a microelectromechanical sys- tems (MEMS)-based inertial measurement unit (IMU) to thigh angle estimation for the control of a semi-active knee prosthesis. By using inertial based measurement devices, we can move all of our sensors to one location inside the prosthetic leg. These sensors are challenging to use, how- ever, because error in their measurements will accumulate over time. We show that by applying the Kalman filter to an IMU consisting of a dual-axis accelerometer and a single- axis gyroscope, we can decrease the integral of squared er- ror of our thigh angle estimates by 70%.

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