Modeling and Optimal Control of Able-bodied and Unilateral Amputee Running

The remarkable performances of amputee athletes in sprint competitions aroused media and scientific interest and led to the question whether running-specific prostheses can be an advantage with respect to able-bodied running. The aim of this study was to bring together motion capture data and Scientific Computing methods to analyze the running motions of an able-bodied and a unilateral transtibial amputee athlete. For each of them a rigid multibody system model was created. By application of optimal control techniques, the dynamics of reference running movements from motion capture data was reconstructed for both models. The able-bodied and the transtibial amputee sprinters rely on dissimilar actuation strategies to perform similar running motions.