Analysis of Human Stair Walking Using Force Plate. Characteristics during Starting and Stopping Compared with Level Walking.

Abstract

This paper reports the dynamic characteristics of human stair walking, particularly the transient during starting and stopping phases. The transient characteristics in human walking, especially in stair walking, has rarely been studied because of the difficulty of experimental measurement. Large force plates, on which two staircase models having 5 stairs are set, were used for measuring both three orthogonal components of the reaction force and its point of application in four different walking modes. In this paper, experimental results in stair walking are compared with those in level walking to make the distinct characteristics of stair walking clear. The velocity and the displacement of the mass center of the entire human body are obtained by numerical integration of the reaction force components, once or twice, respectively. The following results are obtained : the behaviors of the reaction force and the motion of its point of application in stair walking are more complicated than those in level walking ; this finding suggests that the stress appearing at joints is bigger in stair walking.