Role of compliant mechanics and motor control in hopping - from human to robot.

Compliant leg function found during bouncy gaits in humans and animals can be considered a role model for designing and controlling bioinspired robots and assistive devices. The human musculoskeletal design and control differ from distal to proximal joints in the leg. The specific mechanical properties of different leg parts could simplify motor control, e.g., by taking advantage of passive body dynamics. This control embodiment is complemented by neural reflex circuitries shaping human motor control. This study investigates the contribution of specific passive and active properties at different leg joint levels in human hopping at different hopping frequencies. We analyze the kinematics and kinetics of human leg joints to design and control a bioinspired hopping robot. In addition, this robot is used as a test rig to validate the identified concepts from human hopping. We found that the more distal the joint, the higher the possibility of benefit from passive compliant leg structures. A passive elastic element nicely describes the ankle joint function. In contrast, a more significant contribution to energy management using an active element (e.g., by feedback control) is predicted for the knee and hip joints. The ankle and knee joints are the key contributors to adjusting hopping frequency. Humans can speed up hopping by increasing ankle stiffness and tuning corresponding knee control parameters. We found that the force-modulated compliance (FMC) as an abstract reflex-based control beside a fixed spring can predict human knee torque-angle patterns at different frequencies. These developed bioinspired models for ankle and knee joints were applied to design and control the EPA-hopper-II robot. The experimental results support our biomechanical findings while indicating potential robot improvements. Based on the proposed model and the robot's experimental results, passive compliant elements (e.g. tendons) have a larger capacity to contribute to the distal joint function compared to proximal joints. With the use of more compliant elements in the distal joint, a larger contribution to managing energy changes is observed in the upper joints.

Reconstruction of human swing leg motion with passive biarticular muscle models.

Template models, which are utilized to demonstrate general aspects in human locomotion, mostly investigate stance leg operation. The goal of this paper is presenting a new conceptual walking model benefiting from swing leg dynamics. Considering a double pendulum equipped with combinations of biarticular springs for the swing leg beside spring-mass (SLIP) model for the stance leg, a novel SLIP-based model, is proposed to explain human-like leg behavior in walking. The action of biarticular muscles in swing leg motion helps represent human walking features, like leg retraction, ground reaction force and generating symmetric walking patterns, in simulations. In order to stabilize the motion by the proposed passive structure, swing leg biarticular muscle parameters such as lever arm ratios, stiffnesses and rest lengths need to be properly adjusted. Comparison of simulation results with human experiments shows the ability of the proposed model in replicating kinematic and kinetic behavior of both stance and swing legs as well as biarticular thigh muscle force of the swing leg. This substantiates the important functional role of biarticular muscles in leg swing.