A simulation-based heuristic solution procedure for analyzing human postural balance

Abstract

Human postural movements can be simulated by a biomechanical model. Biomechanical models, however, involve differential equations and do not admit conventional optimization techniques for solution. Introducing the notion of dynamic grid-sizing, this paper presents an easy-to-implement simulation-based heuristic procedure for solving biomechanical models. We adopt the four-segment sagittal model for human postural analysis from [Iqbal K, Pai YC (2000) Predicted region of stability for balance recovery: motion at the knee joint can improve termination of forward movement. J Biomech 33:1,619-1,627] for illustration and solve it to predict a region of stability for the model. The size and the feasibility of the stability region predicted by the proposed scheme in comparison with results reported in (Iqbal K, Pai YC (2000) Predicted region of stability for balance recovery: motion at the knee joint can improve termination of forward movement. J Biomech 33:1,619-1,627) demonstrate that the proposed scheme is fairly efficient and effective and further suggest its practical usage in analyzing human postural balance.