Stability Landscapes of Walking and Running Near Gait Transition Speed

Abstract

Variability has long been used as an indication of stability in the application of a dynamical systems approach to human motion (i.e., greater variability has been related to a less stable system and vise versa). This paper incorporates the probability of gait transition during walking and running at a certain speed to represent the stability of human locomotion. The mathematical representation concerning the probability of gait transition change with locomotory speed was derived for increasing walking speed and decreasing running speed. Additionally, the influence of acceleration and deceleration on the stability landscapes of walking and running was discussed based on experimental data. The influence of acceleration was also used to explain the different trends of hysteresis observed by various researchers. Walk-to-run transition speed was greater than run-to-walk transition speed, with a greater magnitude of acceleration, while the trend was reversed with a lesser acceleration magnitude. The quantitative measure of the relationship between variability and stability needs to be explored in the future.