A Review Study for Measurement, Analysis and Evaluation Four Bar Polycentric Knee

Abstract

Abstract When a transfemoral amputee missing his knee joint, a polycentric mechanism is used as technical substitute to restore the gait function. The motion ability of transfemoral amputee is dependent on the performance of prosthetic knee. Recent results on the kinematic analysis of four-bar polycentric knee mechanism are reviewed in this article. Different experimental tests on data of above-knee prosthetic limb such as F-socket, gait analysis, ground reaction force, static loading, fatigue life and static prosthetic alignment, etc., were used to analyse the gait cycle and to improve the comfortability of amputee after using prosthetic limb, and to increase the stability of prosthetic knee after using. Finally, the optimization techniques included selection of the optimum dimension of polycentric knee is dependent on the data of ICR trajectory estimated from kinematic analysis of four-bar mechanism. These optimization techniques have significant effect on improving the mechanical properties of polycentric knee and reducing its cost.