Human Kicking Motion Using Efficient Forward Dynamics Simulation And Optimization

The problem of finding and predicting muscle activations for free goal oriented or measured human motion is one of the basic problems in biomechanics. While currently inverse dynamics approaches are most commonly used for their computational efficiency, they can not handle the problem in its most general form. We here present computational methods that increase the computational efficiency of the forward dynamics approach by two orders of magnitude. Results are presented for a time optimal kicking motion and the analysis of a measured kicking motion. Current work includes investigation of a jumping motion and finding optimal walking motions for a robot that is driven by artificial muscles.