Design and Testing of a Fully-Integrated Electro-Hydrostatic Actuator for Powered Knee Prostheses

Electro-hydrostatic actuation represents a well-suited alternative in prosthetic and robotic applications to electro-mechanical actuation. In this regard, its favorable controllability and intrinsic back-drivability are key enabling features. This work offers a specific design methodology to obtain a highly-integrated and back-drivable electro-hydrostatic unit for a powered knee prosthesis to be used both in active and regenerative modes. The designed actuator was manufactured, assembled and tested in position tracking and admittance control, where promising performance was attained.