Walking dynamics from mechanism models to parameter optimization

The paper deals with the historical development of human body dynamics, and it presents results received for simple models by parameter optimization. The scientific research on human walking dynamics started already in the 19th century and was later promoted by the physicist and physiologist Otto Fischer who published in 1906 his fundamental book. Fischer used the mechanism theory for modeling and analysis of human walking. His research was based on the barycenters of the corresponding reduced mechanisms. By the end of the 20th century computational multibody dynamics provided more complex models which were applied to human body dynamics, too. More recently parameter optimization has been used to deal with the overactuation of biomechanical systems still a very active research topic in biomechanics. As an example a gait disorder simulation is presented showing that even today mechanism models, muscle group selection, inverse dynamics approaches and parameter optimization techniques using energy and aesthetics criteria are essential tools.