Toward the Development of Knee Prostheses: Review of Current Active Devices

Abstract

This paper presents a thorough review of the initiatives carried out in the last 10 years toward the development of active knee prostheses (AKP) for transfemoral amputees. Three selection criteria were employed to filter the works to be considered in the review: (1) a prototype of the prosthesis is available; (2) the mechanical design, instrumentation, and control strategy of such a prototype have been presented in a scientific disclosure media; and (3) the prototype has been subjected to clinical assessment at least in a preliminary way. After applying such criteria, 16 projects were selected and further reviewed through a total of 31 scientific papers, considering the following six aspects: (1) actuators, (2) instrumentation, (3) control, (4) testing trials, (5) performance metrics, and (6) limitations. Then, in addition, the chronological appearance of the aforesaid papers is also shown and quantified regarding each of the previously mentioned issues, to initiate discussion on the related topics. Thus, the present review results in a specialized summary of all these developments in a structured format, offering additional understanding of the recent advances achieved in this field.