Prosthesis (i.e. – artificial body members) – parts thereof – or ai – Implantable prosthesis – Bone
Patent
1988-06-20
1990-07-31
Apley, Richard J.
Prosthesis (i.e., artificial body members), parts thereof, or ai
Implantable prosthesis
Bone
623 18, 623 26, 128 26, 901 21, 901 28, A61F 230
Patent
active
049447556
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a motorized joint for producing the realistic appearance and action of animal or human muscles in artificial limbs.
Artificial limbs are commonly prepared for amputees and people having comparable disabilities. Unfortunately, such limbs are rarely attractive, and fail to reproduce the appearance of the limbs they are intended to replace. This can have adverse psychological effects on the wearers of the limbs.
Additionally, the limbs are increasingly required as constituent parts of experimental and industrial robots, and there is a growing range of applications of artificial limbs in high technology animated television and cinema productions. Further, successful television and film recordings encourage secondary markets in the merchandising of souvenir models of characters appearing in such productions. It has been a long standing problem that, in order to manufacture the souvenir models sufficiently cheaply to exploit the intended market for them, the models do not accurately reproduce the appearance or actions of the characters upon which they are based.
Accordingly, the present invention provides A motorized joint in a skeleton structure comprising a pair of relatively movable limbs, an inflatable element having an inextensible wall acting between the limbs, means to interconnect the inflatable element to the limbs such that in one position of relative movement of the limbs the element is in a deflated, flat and folded condition and means to inflate the element causing the element to increase in cross-section and unfold to cause relative movement between the limbs from said one position to a further position of relative movement.
Such a motorized joint as defined above is characterized by a lack of internal inertia. This is brought about by the low level of internal friction in the motorized joint which may be pneumatically or hydraulically controlled. Thus, the problems, evident in previous joints, associated with the transition from static to dynamic friction (which is known as "break out" in the art) are absent from motorized joints according to the present invention. This solves a problem with previous artificial limbs that the movement of the limb is unnatural in appearance due to jerking of the joint as the inertia of previous motorized actuators is overcome. The movement of a motorized joint of the present invention is, by contrast, smooth and progressive and can be accurately controlled by a proportional controller, again enhancing the life-like nature of the movement of the muscle.
Further, a skeletal structure comprising a motorized joint according to the invention and a plurality of interconnected, further elements will have a realistic animal-like motion, since movement in one part of the skeleton will result in corresponding reactions elsewhere in the structure due to the interconnection of the elements thereof.
A further advantage of using an inflatable element to apply the force required to move the relatively movable limbs, which represent or replace the bones of the limb under consideration, is that the expansion of the inflatable element which accompanies the operation of the joint reproduces the action of an animal or human muscle, which enlarges when the muscle is flexed. Additionally, a motorized joint which incorporates an inflatable element to produce an actuating force requires fewer precision-manufactured components than previous artificial joints, and consequently is cheaper to manufacture and maintain than such previous designs. Such a joint is also quiet in operation.
Preferably, the relatively movable limbs are interconnected by a hinged joint. This feature permits the use of the motorized joint of the invention in artificial limbs designed to reproduce the appearance and function of actual animal and human joints.
Alternatively, the present invention provides a motorized joint in a skeleton structure comprising a pair of relatively movable limbs, an inflatable element having an inextensible wall acting between the limbs, means to interconnec
REFERENCES:
patent: 3343864 (1964-09-01), Baer
patent: 3937215 (1976-02-01), Barthlome
patent: 4274399 (1981-06-01), Mummert
patent: 4393728 (1983-07-01), Larson
patent: 4671258 (1987-06-01), Barthlome
patent: 4739692 (1988-04-01), Wassam et al.
patent: 4867140 (1989-09-01), Hovis et al.
Fluck Peter
Hennequin James R.
Air Muscle Limited
Apley Richard J.
Cheng Joe H.
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