February 21, 2010
Smart Fake Foot Recycles Energy To Boost Walking Efficiency
A smart fake foot uses springs and electronics mechanism to recycle or reuse energy lost during walking, literally helps our friends with artificial legs to walk as normally as the able-bodied.
According to Steven Collins, a bio-mechanics researcher at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, "Artificial feet are even more wasteful of energy". Normally, our feet uses about 200 muscles or so during walking and it looses energy in the long run. In order to replace that lost energy, our ankles push off. Unfortunately, for amputees, they have no way to do that.
So, with a research collaborator Arthur Kuo of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, developed a smart fake foot based on their experience of developing bipedal robots and researches of the how a human foot loses and consumes energy to create their own fake foot design.
This new smart fake foot mechanism was tested on 11 able-bodied individuals with their foot fitted with the prosthetic foot on a special ankle boot (see video).
Click here to read more about Smart Fake Foot, Artificial Foot
Written by: John
Filed Under: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics, Robotics Sensors
Tags: Ankle Boot, Ankles, Ann Arbor, Arthur Kuo, Artificial Legs, Bio Mechanics, Bipedal Robots, Bodied Individuals, Delft University Of Technology, Energy Efficiency, Foot Design, Human Foot, Muscles, Netherlands, Prosthetic Foot, Research Collaborator, Researcher, Researches, University Of Michigan, University Of Technology
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pululu81
dhaval
vineeth
Rhonda
Smith
Jaison Mathew
February 22, 2010 at 1:55 am
This is really a blessing for the amputees
dhaval
February 22, 2010 at 2:39 am
This is nice article.The article give me good information about Smart Fake Foot Recycles Energy To Boost Walking Efficiency.Thank you for giving this article.
Liz
February 22, 2010 at 3:03 am
This sounds like an exciting development so that amputees can walk farther, easier and not get as tired. I’m sure anything that makes you able to walk more like you were used to walking before would be a blessing.
bobby387
February 22, 2010 at 3:14 am
This smart fake foot is amazing. All the description given about this robot is useful for me to understand things in a better way.