| With the aging of population, fast-paced life and the frequently happened traffic accident, natural disasters and industrial accident in recent years, probability of people suffering external damage is increasing. The tibial fracture is one of the most common fracture cases. To help tibial fracture rehabilitation, an intelligent brace is designed which consists of a weight-bearing lower extremity brace and smart insoles. Besides, a method to measure the fracture healing progress is studied.First of all, a weight-bearing adjustable brace is designed according to the lower leg's anatomical characteristics and requirement of fracture rehabilitation. Modeling of the socket shows the friction plays an important role in the bearing.Secondly, the smart insoles are used to measure the plantar force based on the distribution of the plantar force and human gait. The sensors are calibrated by specific equipment and the feasibility of smart insoles is verified by normal gait experiment.Thirdly, ultrasonic shear wave is used to evaluate the healing progress. The equipments, probes and circuits are chosen based on ultrasonic refraction theory. The influence of components' selections to incentive effect in the transmission circuit is discussed. The experimental result shows that the system can incent ultrasound which can transmit in the bone.At last, the function of each subsystem is verified by experiments. The difference between the normal gait and two kind of abnormal gait in the plantar force is detected by smart insoles. The effectiveness of weight-bearing in the brace is measured by smart insoles during standing and walking. An experiment on detection the calf femur shows the feasibility of ultrasound evaluation in the bone.In summary, an intelligence brace, which is composed of a weight-bearing lower extremity brace and smart insoles, and a fracture healing progress measurement by ultrasound are designed. Experiments show the feasibility and practicality of these systems. |
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