Simu — An Interactive Computer Graphics Simulation of Human Gait

Abstract

Human gait requires the coordinated action of muscles surrounding the joints to provide translations of the body through space. A large body of literature exist on the analysis of gait reporting net joint moments and even muscle force through the application of an experimental or a hypothesized organizational scheme. A much smaller number of workers have approached gait as a direct dynamic problem which involves determining the motion resulting from some given inputs, e.g. (1)(4). Many of these approaches have used overly simplified models or constrained some aspect of the resulting motion, e.g. motion of the trunk will be sinusoidal. With a small number of exceptions these investigations have concerned themselves with airbourne activities. Recent publications (2)(3) have, however, reported preliminary results for models including ground contact phases.