Arms Control Association

The basic requirement of biped (two-legged) motion is upright standing, which is inherently a balance-keeping task. The goal of our research is to understand what enables standing in humans and use this insight to develop diagnostics for medical applications. Standing involves a complex balance-keeping control mechanism in the brain. In addition to the brain, the bone frame and muscular system are developed to make bipedal motion possible. We have developed a balance-keeping control model that can be used for analyzing the balance-keeping ability in humans. PID control model is used to approximate the control process that enables standing. This closed-loop model provides insight into balance-related phenomena such as body sway and falls