Dynamics and control of legged locomotion is such a tough engineering problem. The legged robots that we have built so far struggle with it; they barely survive outside the laboratory environment. Nor do artificial legs reach far beyond peg legs that offer a mere support to their users. Even when legs are perfectly intact, as in spinal cord injured patients, we do not know how to engineer locomotion controls for them.
This research involves developing mathematical and computational models that capture essential problems of locomotion biomechanics and motor control, conducting animal and human experiments that test and inspire these models, and building robot legs that translate the model results into rehabilitation technologies.
Read more on Hartmut Geyer’s website.
