Hierarchical neural control of human postural balance and bipedal walking in sagittal plane

The cerebrocerebellar system has been known to be a central part in human motion control and execution. However, engineering descriptions of the system, especially in relation to lower body motion, have been very limited. This thesis proposes an integrated hierarchical neural model of sagittal planar human postural balance and biped walking to 1) investigate an explicit mechanism of the cerebrocerebellar and other related neural systems, 2) explain the principles of human postural balancing and biped walking control in terms of the central nervous systems, and 3) provide a biologically inspired framework for the design of humanoid or other biomorphic robot locomotion. The modeling was designed to confirm neurophysiological plausibility and achieve practical simplicity as well. The combination of scheduled long-loop proprioceptive and force feedback represents the cerebrocerebellar system to implement postural balance strategies despite the presence of signal transmission delays and phase lags. The model demonstrates that the postural control can be substantially linear within regions of the kinematic state-space with switching driven by sensed variables.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Jo, Sungho, 1974-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Steve G. Massaquoi.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37854

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37854