Gait analysis of a human walker wearing robot feet as shoes

This work takes part in the project of development of an anthropomorphic biped robot, Bip. The technological construction has been completed and the robot has performed some slow static walks. The next stage is the implementation of fast and dynamic walking gaits, in other words anthropomorphic gaits. The robot feet have been designed with a three-axes force-moment sensor for reconstructing the center of pressure-zero moment point. To study and test these feet, the idea is simple: the experimental setup consists of a human walker wearing the Bip feet as shoes, a force-plate and a motion analysis system. The purpose is double. The first one is aimed at comparing the contact pressure forces reconstructed with the Bip sensor feet, with the data recorded by the force-plate. The second one consists in determining the influence of (relatively) heavy and rigid metallic shoes on the gait of a human walker. If these feet were proving to be a handicap for efficient and elegant human walking gaits, how could it be any different for the robot Bip? Fortunately the analysis shows that they do not really handicap the walker.