On the mechanical contribution of head stabilization to passive dynamics of anthropometric walkers

Mehdi Benallegue (1, 2) , Jean-Paul Laumond (3) , Alain Berthoz (4)

1 CNRS-AIST JRL - Joint Robotics Laboratory
2 AIST - National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
3 DI-ENS - Département d'informatique - ENS Paris
4 CdF (institution) - Collège de France

During the steady gait, humans stabilize their head around the vertical orientation. While there are sensori-cognitive explanations for this phenomenon, its mechanical e fect on the body dynamics remains un-explored. In this study, we take profit from the similarities that human steady gait share with the locomotion of passive dynamics robots. We introduce a simplified anthropometric D model to reproduce a broad walking dynamics. In a previous study, we showed heuristically that the presence of a stabilized head-neck system significantly influences the dynamics of walking. This paper gives new insights that lead to understanding this mechanical e fect. In particular, we introduce an original cart upper-body model that allows to better understand the mechanical interest of head stabilization when walking, and we study how this e fect is sensitive to the choice of control parameters.

Mots clés: Humanoid Robots; Legged Robots; Biomimetics

Domaines: Robotique [cs.RO]; Biomécanique [physics.med-ph]

Mehdi Benallegue, Jean-Paul Laumond, Alain Berthoz. On the mechanical contribution of head stabilization to passive dynamics of anthropometric walkers. The International Journal of Robotics Research, 2020, 39 (4), pp.461-475. ⟨10.1177/0278364919894387⟩. ⟨hal-02975133v1⟩