Design and Construction of Ankle Foot Orthosis By Means of Three Dimensional Printers

Three dimensional (3d) printer technologies are rapidly developing and increasingly being used in several fields. in this study, as a first step a 3d printer is constructed by modifying open source hardware and controlled by improving open source software. subsequently, an ankle foot orthosis (afo) is designed and constructed by using this 3d printer.the ankle foot orthosis, very important for human walking, is designed to control motion of the ankle and prevents deformities. an afo can generally be used for following purposes: brace weak limbs, grasp ankle and foot in the right position and correct the foot drop. since the users have different sizes of ankles and different types of deformities, an afo must be produced to match in size to the end-user. therefore off-the-shelf afos may not suitable for the each end user. considering these factors, 3d printers are of great importance for producing individualized biomedical equipment. in this study, a distinctive ankle foot orthosis is first modelled by using cad software and then produced by using constructed 3d printer. this afo is the first ankle foot orthosis produced by a 3d printer in the literature of our country. this study is a proof that biomedical equipments can be produced in a shorter time and less costly by using 3d printers.