A Prospective Outlook on the Development of Exoskeletal Knee Joints for Prostheses via a Design Concept Evaluation Approach

Abstract

Disability is a complex multidimensional challenge and it can substantially limit the major life activities of a person. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it is estimated that 3.73% of the population have functional disabilities. People with disability always stay in the same posture which limits their social independence. A brief introduction and a literature review about exoskeletal prostheses and a preliminary analysis of the biomechanics of passive knees are presented in this paper. The proposed knee joint design has key features that are similar to other currently available knee joints for prosthetic legs. The main components of our design include single-axis knee joints, legs, and sockets. We limited our investigation to a handful of biomechanical variables that can be easily evaluated and generate some targets for long-term rehabilitation research. Thus, by following the cognitive principle of engineering design methodology, i.e. the “weight and rate criterion,” we provide a preliminary concept and theoretical calculations for the development of a cost-effective knee joint system. The Ansys engineering simulation and three-dimensional design software such as SOLIDWORKS simulation were utilized to provide an outlook of our initial prototype. In addition, by subjective and objective approaches, from our theoretical calculation for our designed product, the factor of safety was determined to be higher than 1.5.