The Foot in Walking - Towards Developing a Constrained Model of Stance Phase Dynamics

Abstract

Abstract Bipedal walking is the most prevalent form of human locomotion — versatile, robust, and efficient. However, it is a form of motion few other animals share, and plantigrade bipedalism is fairly unique to our species. Plantigrade feet play an important role in shaping the fundamental gait dynamics, and understanding their role unlocks a huge potential for biomechanical insights for locomotion research, gait rehabilitation, and humanoid robotics. Still, a comprehensive functional model of the foot, which ties the fundamental dynamics of walking to the interaction of foot and ground, does not yet exist due to the inherent mechanical complexity. In this paper, we present a set of assumptions in detail to simplify the development of a mathematical description of the foot’s motion during stance phase in human walking. These assumptions are validated using experimental data. We can show that the complex motion of the foot can be ultimately reduced to a simple rotation, which allows the formulation of a single degree of freedom equation of motion that ties proximal dynamics and constraints into a planar foot model of dynamic interactions.