Louis Devillez

Hip disarticulation is a highly mutilating intervention that involves amputating an entire leg to prevent the propagation of a pelvic bone tumor. While bionic prostheses for transtibial and transfemoral amputees have advanced rapidly in recent years, active hip modules remain largely absent from this research agenda. This gap likely reflects both the relatively low incidence of hip disarticulation and the inherent challenges of interfacing an amputee with a complete artificial leg.

This project addresses three main research questions concerning the design, control, and validation of an active leg prosthesis for a disarticulated amputee.

The first objective is the development of an innovative active hip prosthesis. Combined with existing knee and ankle modules, this device provides the first full-leg prosthesis capable of continuously delivering mechanical energy through all three joints.

The second objective concerns the control strategy for achieving level-ground walking by interfacing the device with a disarticulated amputee. The framework relies on bioinspired mechanisms implemented through a neuromechanical model of the lower limb, combining reflexes with a descending oscillator. A central challenge lies in designing a “steering” (or “pacing”) signal based on the user’s motion intention, enabling the prosthesis to operate in symbiosis with the intact segments. A second version of the controller focuses specifically on enhancing user balance.

The final objective is an experimental program aimed at validating the proposed concepts with disarticulated amputees using the prototype.

Louis Devillez obtained his master’s degree in electromechanical engineering from the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain, Belgium) and from Ecole Centrale Paris (ECP, France) in 2021. At the end of his degree, he completed a master thesis in bio-inspired mechanical design and control for an eel like robot. Since then, he joined the team of Professor Ronsse (UCLouvain, Louvain Bionics) as a PhD student. His research project in the field of electromechanical design for medical devices aims at designing a new bionic prosthetic hip with the objective of building the first full bionic leg. This project also includes the control of such a prosthesis with bio-inspired control.