In search of optimality in sensorimotor control of standing posture

Summary form only given. If there are consistent criteria that the body utilizes to make choices, it may be possible to study human movement as an optimization problem: mathematical modeling of the criteria used to resolve redundancies. This problem can be broken into three components: characterization of the system being controlled, determination of optimization criteria for the control, and processing of sensory information that is used for feedback. It is shown that by examining the mapping between muscle activations and joint angular accelerations, it is possible to characterize the bounds on movement placed by muscle strength, musculoskeletal geometry, and the equations of motion for the body. The effect of these biomechanical factors is to constrain the set of joint angular accelerations that can be achieved given any combination of muscle activations. There are also additional constraints on body configurations and accelerations based on the desire to avoid falling over or lifting of the toes or heels off the ground. These effects are described by the set of all feasible joint angular accelerations.<>