Balance-Keeping Control of Upright Standing in Biped Human Beings and its Application for Stability Assessment

Abstract

One of the most important tasks in biped robot is the balance-keeping control. A question arisen as how do our human beings make the balance-keeping possible in upright standing as human beings are the only biped-walking primates, which takes several million years of evolution period to achieve this ability. Studies on humans' balance-keeping mechanism are not only the work of physiologists but also a task of robot engineers since bio-mimetic approach is a shortcut for developing humanoid robot. This chapter will introduce some research progresses on balance-keeping control in upright standing. We will introduce the physical characteristics of human body at first, modeling the physical system of body, establishing a balance-keeping control model, and at last applying the balance-keeping ability assessment for falls risk prediction. We wish those studies make contributions to robotics.