Design of a bionic prosthetic foot with energy harvesting

In this paper, we designed a novel bionic prosthetic foot mimicking human plantar muscle biomechanics to restore natural gait mechanics for lower limb amputees. In addition, energy harvesting technology was exploited to capture energy from the deformation of the prosthetic foot to power the wearable electronics to monitor the users' motion. Specifically, piezoelectric transducers were attached to the prosthetic foot to generate electricity when the ground reaction force deformed the prosthetic foot during the stance phase. Finite element analysis in the ANSYS platform was conducted to analyze the deformations of the prosthetic foot. Finally, a prototype was fabricated and tested on a unilateral below-knee amputee to validate our design. The subject's gait and the piezoelectric transducers' energy output were logged and studied.