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Angular Momentum In Human Walking, Marko Popovic, Hugh Herr

Marko B. Popovic

Angular momentum is a conserved physical quantity for isolated systems where no external moments act about a bodyʼs center of mass (CM). However, in the case of legged locomotion, where the body interacts with the environment (ground reaction forces), there is no a priori reason for this relationship to hold. A key hypothesis in this paper is that angular momentum is highly regulated throughout the walking cycle about all three spatial directions [ (t) ≈0], and therefore horizontal ground reaction forces and the center of pressure trajectory can be explained predominantly through an analysis that assumes zero net moment about …