Design of a passive transfemoral prosthesis using differential flatness theory

This paper investigates the feasibility of generating a natural looking walking gait during the swing phase for a transfemoral prosthetic leg. This prosthesis has a powered knee joint and a passive ankle joint, and is designed to be differentially flat. The diffeomorphism between the physical space and the flat output space provides a mathematical framework to solve the challenging trajectory attainment problem. The proposed methodology is demonstrated by both simulation and experiments.