Control of the boundary conditions of a dynamic knee simulator

At Ghent University a dynamic knee simulator to analyse the kinematics of a human knee has been developed. The rig is designed to perform tests on a mechanical hinge or on a human knee (with or without a prosthesis). The rig has one degree of freedom in a hip joint and four degrees of freedom in an ankle joint. There is currently one actuator that simulates the quadriceps forces. Two additional actuators are proposed in this paper to simulate the hamstrings forces. The magnitude and phase of the forces varies significantly during the movement (e.g. cycling or squatting). Literature indicates that the maximum muscle forces do not exceed 2000 N. An inverse dynamic analysis, using the musculoskeletal software AnyBody, is proposed to determine the evolution of these forces during the studied movements.