The relationship between arm movement and walking stability in bipedal walking

Research about bipedal locomotion is advanced in all fields at present. For research of those fields, a quantitative analysis of human walking characteristics is indispensable. However, bipedal locomotion analysis has been performed focusing on lower limbs, and, research on arm swing operation has not been performed; nevertheless its importance is generally known. The reason for its omission is the assumption that the arm is not a necessary part for locomotion. However, it can be guessed that the arm swing operation, having done a certain role in the stability of a walk, is very unstable physically. When running, the human clearly draws the arm greatly and quickly. This suggests that the arm swing operation is related with the change of walking form and movement speed of the locomotion, and it influences the stability of a walk. This method becomes a useful analysis technique also not only to the above-mentioned research but to sport kinematics research etc., if the relations to this arm swing operation and the stability of a walk is quantitatively understood. In this study, the relationship between arm swing operation in bipedal locomotion and stability of the walking was noticed.