UCLouvain · Full Professor
Prof. Renaud Ronsse
Keynote Session
Design, Control, and Validation of a Full-Leg Prosthesis
Prof. Renaud Ronsse is specialized in bionics and robotics for human movement assistance. He leads a team developing lower-limb prostheses, such as the ELSA ankle, and recently achieved a world first by enabling a person with a hip disarticulation to walk with a full bionic leg. His research spans the design of innovative prototypes, bio-inspired robot control, and modeling of animal locomotion. He is also the Vice-President for Research at the Institute of Mechanics, Materials, and Civil Engineering at UCLouvain, and heads a major continuing education program for medical devices.
Session Abstract
In this talk, I will overview our recent developments in the design of a full-leg prosthesis to replace the missing joint(s) of people having suffered from lower-limb amputation. The bionic ankle ELSA is a compact device that replicates the biomechanical function of a human ankle in daily locomotion tasks. It embeds all technological components within the volume of the shoe, such that it has the potential to be used by people with very low-level of amputation. Our prosthetic knee is fully passive, yet can deliver assistance during walking and sit-to-stand transfer tasks, by means of clever design of elastic and clutching mechanisms. Finally, AURHA is a prototype aiming at replacing a biological hip after hip disarticulation. This extreme amputation level poses unique scientific challenges in terms of mechanical design and control, that we tackled with innovative solutions. The talk will overview the specific challenges of each leg joint, and will explain how we addressed them with a global bio-inspired approach.