Small steps for mankind: Towards a kinematically driven dynamic simulation of curved path walking

Abstract

AbstractA simple approach for the simulation of bipedal locomotion is presented. It is based on a kinematically driven rigid body dynamics simulation. As inputs, our system uses a 14‐DOF simplified human body model, and the instantaneous walking direction and the gait length. From these parameters, the trajectories of the left and right feet are computed over time, using a purely kinematical recipe. Optionally, trajectories of other body parts (head, shoulders, hips, hands, knees, etc.) may be derived from a simple kinematic body model. Using these additional trajectories provides for increased control over the motion, adding extra kinematic constraints to the dynamical system. The trajectories, together with optional force fields (gravity etc.), serve to drive the motion of the articulated human body model. This means that for those points in the body that have not been specified kinematically, a rigid body dynamics calculation is used to describe their motion over time. An implementation of these ideas turns out to allow a frame update rate of about 20 Hz on a personal IRISTM workstation, which is sufficiently fast for real‐time interaction.