Bio-inspired Topological Skeleton for the Analysis of Quadruped Kinematic Gait

Abstract

In bio-inspired design activities, Nature is a basis of knowledge. Over the last twenty years, many solutions to measure and analyze human or animal gaits have been developed (VICON system, X-ray radiography...). Although, these methods are becoming more and more accurate, they are quite expensive, long to set up and not easily portable. In this paper, a method called the bio-inspired topological skeleton is suggested in order to complement the classic videography process and to enable animal gait analysis. A new predictive kinematic model with closed-loops of an unguligrade quadruped will be suggested. This kinematic model includes three segments per leg and takes into account the scapula movements. The proposed method allows us to improve the accuracy of the kinematic input data measured from a single video including an additional artefact. To show the benefits of this method, joint parameters that are difficult to measure are derived symbolically from a kinematic model and compared with experimental data.

Effects of realistic sheep elbow kinematics in inverse dynamic simulation

“…Each extensor and flexor group was treated as a whole unit as no DoFs at the digital joints were considered. Sheep gait data was adopted from [37]. For the adopted gait trail, muscle forces were calculated using the static optimization algorithm implemented in OpenSim [38].…”

Model Predictive Control for Motion Planning of Quadrupedal Locomotion

“…Quadrupedal robots are one type of legged machines that are built for multi-terrain purposes [1], [2], [3], [4]. Quadrupedal robots exhibit various gait patterns, depending on the locomotion speed, terrain conditions as well as animal species [5], [6]. Furthermore, in low-speed locomotion, most mammalian use a so-called lateral-sequence walk (L-S walk) while walking, such as horse, lion and so on [7], [8].…”