Structural design of variable stiffness ankle foot orthosis

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  • Tanaka Masao
    Osaka University, School/Graduate School of Engineering Science

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Ankle foot orthosis (AFO) is a common assistive device supporting walking activities. Among various AFO designs, the shoehorn-type AFO has a monolithic elastic structure and has been widely used for patients after stroke and others. In its design/prescription, the AFO stiffness at ankle joint is the primal concern from the biomechanical viewpoint for gait motion. The expected AFO stiffness as an assistive device is different for the walking phase by phase, although the traditional shoehorn-type AFO has a fixed stiffness throughout the whole walking phase. The variable stiffness structure considered here for AFO is a passive monolithic structure of elasticity that provides different structural stiffness at ankle joint under the individual loading condition depending on each walking phase. This structural concept is considered in the context of elastic structural design and the AFO design problem is formulated as the structural design optimization. The design feasibility is demonstrated by using a basic topology optimization scheme.

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