Congratulations to Heidi Fehr and Jenny Leestma (current and former BADGER Lab members) on publication of a paper on characterizing the Dynamic Mean Ankle Moment Arm (DMAMA) in persons using the Variable-Stiffness Foot prosthesis (VSF) on level ground, ramps and stairs. Their paper used wearable sensors (inertial sensors and a pylon load cell) to measure DMAMA on these different terrains, with the semi-active VSF set to different stiffness values. They characterized sensitivity of DMAMA to both terrain and stiffness, and investigated how to estimate the terrain condition from a simplified set of prosthesis-embedded sensors, for possible automated adaptation in real-world use.
J. K. Leestma, K. H. Fehr, and P. G. Adamczyk, “Adapting Semi-Active Prostheses to Real-World Movements: Sensing and Controlling the Dynamic Mean Ankle Moment Arm with a Variable-Stiffness Foot on Ramps and Stairs,” Sensors, vol. 21, no. 18, Art. no. 18, Sept. 2021, doi: 10.3390/s21186009.