Proceedings of the 3rd Annual

IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering

Scottsdale, AZ, USA, Sept 22-25, 2007

SuRP-B02.6

simulator and presents preliminary knee loading

data for simulated walking using this new
machine.
Nathalie Doriot and Laurence Chze [6] have
described a method for three dimensional
kinematics and dynamics of lower limb during
walking where proposed method is based on a
homogeneous matrix concept and inverse
dynamic is used for calculation of forces acting
on the leg.
In the present work sagittal plane method is
used for the analysis. Fig.1 shows the sagittal plane
and the Lagrangian - Euler (LE) formulation is used
to calculate the forces acting on Femur, Tibia and Hip
sled of the body.

Computer Simulation of Dynamics of Human Leg

Dr. Hemant J. Nagarsheth a*, Sachin V. Surve b
Dr. Mansi A. Patelc
a
Professor, Mechanical Engineering Department, SVNIT,
Surat,Gujarat, India
b
Student M.Tech (MECH), Mechanical Engineering
Department, SVNIT, Surat, Gujarat, India.
C
Doctor, Mahavir General Hospital, Surat, Gujarat, India.
Abstract:
Application of Robotics in the field of medical
has gained a strong footing apart from manufacturing
industries, sheep-shearing, agriculture, nuclear power
industries, fire-fighting, mining, underseas applications,
outerspace and other application. In the present work
Dynamic equation of motions of a robot arm are
considered using Lagrangian-Euler formulation and
programs in C, C++ and MATLAB are developed. The
program encompasses the Torque, Centrifugal and
Coriolis and Gravity force applied to the leg of a human
being which is compared to robot manipulator. For the
purpose of analysis cases of a human being lifting weight
is considered. The results obtained by the program are
compared with those obtained by some of the researcher
like Chia-Yu E. Wang, James E. Bobrow, and David J.
Reinkensmeyer [20].

Fig. 1 Sagittal plane [10]

Keywords: human leg, kinematics and dynamics, sagittal

plane, computer simulation.

Fig. 2 depicts the basic human leg motions

considered for the purpose of computation for the
present
work.
The
motions
are
Hip
Flexion/Extension, Knee flexion/Extension and
Ankle Flexion/Extension.

* E-mail address: hjn@med.svnit.ac.in,

surverules@gmail.com
I. Introduction:
In the present work an attempt has been made to apply the
dynamic equation of motion of robot manipulator for the
calculation of Torque, Gravity force and Centrifugal and
coriolis force acting on the human leg. The LagrangianEuler formulation is used and computation is done using
C++ and MATLAB. The work carried out by few of the
researchers is summarised below.
Trent M. Guess and Lorin P. Maletsky [5] have
prepared a dynamic knee simulator and by applying
load on it they have calculated the forces acting on
the parts of dynamic knee simulator.
Susannah K. S. Thorpe, Yu Li, Robin H. Crompton
And R. Mcneill Alexander [4], have calculated Muscle
stresses for the hip (h), knee (k) and ankle (a)
assuming that the moment of force of a particular
muscle at a joint is dependent on the Physiological
cross-sectional areas PCSA (A), the moment arm of
the muscle about the corresponding joint for any
particular joint angle (r) and the muscle stress ( ).
Lorin P. Maletsky, Ben M. Hillberry [7], this paper
describes the design and operation of the knee

1-4244-1154-8/07/$25.00 2007 IEEE.

Fig. 2 Basic motion of Leg [10]

II. Mathematical Modeling:
The motion of human leg is compared with
the slider crank mechanism in calculating the velocity
and acceleration of the Hip-sled and Tibia. The hip is
considered as a slider and joint between Femur and
Tibia is assumed to be hinge joint. For the present
work the human is considered to lift a load with his
hand. During this position the Hip is considered to
move linearly up and down and the leg bends at knee

249

SuRP-B02.6
and the ankle. The movement is in the form of slider
crank motion. The forces acting on the hip and the leg are
estimated based on the load lifted by the human and the
forces due to the upper part of the body. For the purpose
of the problem certain assumptions are taken into
consideration. These are stated below:
Human leg is assumed as slider crank mechanism
[7]
.
Shape of the Tibia and Femur is cylindrical.
Mass is uniformly distributed and center of
gravity is considered to lie at the center of Tibia
and Femur.
Product of inertial is zero [1].
The mass of the Patella negligible [7].
The bones are rigid.
Upper Body Weight (UBW) represents
approximately 65% of the force exerted by the
total body weight [9].
Length of Femur and Tibia is assumed to be 27%
and 23% of human height respectively [9].
Compressive forces are acting on the L5/S1
spinal disk [9].
Compressibility and Deformation of Intra
Articular disc in neglected.
The velocity and the acceleration of the human leg
i.e. for Tibia, Femur and Hip are obtained by using
equation of the slider crank mechanism.

w * cos( )

wc =
n 2 sin 2 ( )

(1)

and

n2 1
2
3/ 2
( n sin ( ))

c = w 2 * sin( )

(2)

The linear velocity and the acceleration of Hip

(slider) is calculated by equation (3)[3] and (4)[3].

sin 2( )

v = r * w sin( ) +

2n

and

cos 2( )

f = r * w 2 * cos( ) +

(3)

(4)

for calculation of torque acting on the human leg the

LE (5) [1] is used.

&(t ) + h( q (t ), q&(t )) + c ( q (t ))
(t ) = D (q (t ))q&

(5)

Where,

(t )

= Generalized torque vector applied at joints

q(t) = Joint variables of the robot arm

q&(t ) = Joint velocity of the robot arm

&(t ) = Acceleration of the joint variables q(t)
q&
D(q) = Inertial acceleration-related symmetric matrix
whose elements are
n

Dik =

Tr (U

jk

J jU ji )

j = max( i , k )

q&
h(q, ) = Coriolis and Centrifugal force vector
c(q) = Gravity loading force vector
The angles required for the calculation of the
parameter for equ. (1), (2), (3), (4), and (5) are taken
form the data generated form Ergomaster software [11]
by capturing the images of the motion of the human
lifting the load. The values of the angles for the
particular case can be estimated. They are depicted in
Table 2.
Fig. 3 Slider-crank mechanism where crank (r) is
Tibia, connecting Rod (l) is Femur and piston is
Hip.

III. Kinematics and Dynamics of a Human Leg [1]:

For analysing the kinematics and dynamics
of the human leg Denavit-Hartenberg parameter
(translation and rotation), Euler angles, direct
kinematics, inverse kinematics, Jacobian matrix and
singularity function are used. Inverse kinematics is
used for finding out the angles, direct kinematics is
used for finding the coordinates. Denavit-Hartenberg
parameter is a systematic way of representing
coordinates of a robotic arm using a matrix method.

w is taken as angular velocity for the Tibia (crank).

The angular velocity and angular acceleration of
Femur (connecting rod) is obtained by using (1)[3]
and (2)[3].

250

SuRP-B02.6
Each joint in a robot is considered to be one degree-offreedom. For robot with n joints, counting from 1 to n,
there are n+1 arms counted from 0 to n. Link 0 is the base
of the robot and the ith joint connects i-th arm to the i - 1 .
The same is applied to human leg. The Denavit Hartenberg Parameters are:
Link length, a i - distance between zi-1. axis and zi axis

Flowchart 1 Depicts the detail process to obtain

the L-E Equation for the Human Leg considering
it as a Slider crank mechanism.
IV. Case study [9]:
The data about the case to be studied is given in
Table 1. In this case the human being lifting the load
is taken into consideration. The various positions are
shown in the Fig. 3. (a) to Fig. (e). In Fig. 3 (a) the
human being is in the standing position and load is
slightly lifted. Based on this position angle made by
Tibia, angle made by Femur with the vertical and the
forces acting on the ankle joint, knee joint and Hip
joint are calculated. Fig. 4, Fig. 5, and Fig. 6 are
graphs of torque verses angle made by Tibia, Knee
and Hip joint.

along xi axis
Link twist, i - angle between zi-1 axis and zi axis
Link offset

d i - distance from origin for i-1-th arm to xi

axis along zi-1, axis

Joint angle, i -angle between xi-1 axis and xi axis
The process to obtain the Torque, Gravity Force and
Centrifugal and Coriolis force for a human leg is depicted
below with the help of flowchart 1.
Based on the flowchart the generalized C++ and
MATLAB programs are developed and utilised for
computing the forces and torques. Specific cases are taken
for the purpose of computing which are discussed below:

Basic Data:
Table 1 Subject Data
Serial No.
1
2
3
4
5

start
Assign frame using D-H matrix
Obtain link transformation
Determine Inertia Tensor Ii for
each link

Content
Age
Sex
Height
Weight
Load

Value
23
Male
163 cm
62 Kg
10 Kg

Table 2 Data form ERGOMASTER Software [11]

Calculate Mij
Calculate velocity coupling
Calculate the Gravity loading
term
Put all these values in L-E
dynamic
Calculate Torque Acting at
Ankle joint, Knee joint, Hip
Calculate Gravity Force Acting
on Tibia, femur and Hip-sled

Calculate Centrifugal and

Coriolis Force Acting on Tibia,
femur and Hip-sled

End of program

251

Case
:a

Case
:b

Case
:c

Case
:d

Case
:e

Distanc
e of
load:
20.5 cm

Distanc
e of
load:
23.4 cm

Distance
of load:
25.8 cm

Distance
of load:
29.3 cm

Distance
of load:
33.6 cm

Biomec
hanical
Angles:
Trunk:
87
Thigh:
85
Leg:
88

Biomec
hanical
Angles:
Trunk:
86
Thigh:
80
Leg:
80

Biomec
hanical
Angles:
Trunk:
85
Thigh:
74
Leg:
73

Biomec
hanical
Angles:
Trunk:
89
Thigh:
58
Leg:
66

Biomec
hanical
Angles:
Trunk:
80
Thigh:
55
Leg: 61

SuRP-B02.6

Torque (N-m) Vs Hip angle (deg)

-2.5

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Torque (N-m)

-2

(e)

Fig. 3 shows the various position which are

considered as case (a), (b), (c), (d), and (e).

-1.5
-1
-0.5

10

20

30

40

50

0
0.5
Hip angle (deg)

Torque (N-m) Vs Ankle angle (deg)

by Author[20]

Fig. 6 Torque (N) Vs Angle made by Hip joint

(For Hip joint)

12
10
Torque (N-m)

V. Result and Discussion:

A brief overview of the present work can be narrated
in the following way. The work consists of
developing mathematical model for computing
parameters as Torque, Forces, Velocity, Acceleration
based on the dynamic equations of motion as an
application of robotics to humanbeing. For
computation the data is taken from some referred
papers as work done by researchers, from journals
and books. Computation is done through C++ and
MATLAB programs developed indigenously. The
results obtained are presented in Table 3 to Table 7. It
is seen from the Table 3 that the torque values
obtained for the ankle, Knee and Hip for case 1 using
MATLAB are 10.613 N-m, 5.39 N-m, and 0.0179 Nm which shows a reducing trend and can be
compared to that obtained by Chia-Yu E [20].
Similarly for case 2, case 3, case 4 and case 5. The
Table 4, Table 5, Table 6, and Table 7 shows similar
trend as that depicted by Chia-Yu E [20]. Considering
the Fig. 6 for torque at hip joint Vs the Hip angle it is
observe that there is sharp rise at values between 200
and 300. As the plot of the present work shows a
steady decline of very small value, this is because in
the present case Hip is considered as a sliding
whereas the author Chia-Yu E [20] has taken into
consideration the rotation at the hip joint. The values
of Centrifugal and coriolis and Gravity force are
shown in Table 3 to Table 7. Force values are also
estimated and are presented in the tables. These
values can alternatively be obtained by the
Ergomaster software. The results obtained by the
present method are very much in tune with those
obtained by the other authors.

6
4
2
0
-2 0

10

20

30

40

-4
by matlab

Ankle angle (deg)

by author[20]

Fig. 4 Torque (N) Vs Angle made by Tibia

(For Ankle joint )
Torque (N-m) Vs Knee angle (deg)
10
5
Torque (N-m)

by matlab

0
-5 0

10

20

30

40

-10
-15
-20
-25
Knee angle (deg)

by matlab
by author[20]

Fig. 5 Torque (N) Vs Angle made by Femur

(For knee joint)

252

SuRP-B02.6
Table 7 Torque values for Ankle, Knee and Hip
obtained by using MATLAB (case 5)

Table 3
Torque values for Ankle, Knee and Hip
obtained by using MATLAB (case 1)
Joint

Tibia
Femur
Hip-sled

Torque
(N-m)

10.613
5.39
0.0179

Centrifugal
and Coriolis
Force
(N)

Gravity
Force
(N)

-4.83
-6.49e-15
0

287.40
250.04
178.15

Joint

Tibia
Femur
Hipsled

Table 4 Torque values for Ankle, Knee and Hip

obtained by using MATLAB (case 2)
Joint

Torque
(N-m)

Centrifugal
and Coriolis
Force
(N)

Gravity
Force
(N)

Tibia
Femur
Hip-sled

10.381
5.29
0.0174

-9.56
-3.6167e-13
0

284.48
246.53
172.64

Tibia
Femur
Hip-sled

Torque
(N-m)

9.992
5.11
0.0163

Centrifugal
and Coriolis
Force
(N)

Gravity
Force
(N)

-149.57
-9.34 e-13
0

278.57
228.48
165.14

Tibia
Femur
Hip-sled

Torque
(N-m)

9.127
4.75
0.0146

Centrifugal
and Coriolis
Force
(N)

Gravity
Force

-249.56
-1.69e-12
0

270.97
211.35
155.12

Centrifugal
and Coriolis
Force
(N)

Gravity
Force

-298.22
0
0

264.33
197.15
128.65

(N)

ai

hip
knee
ankle
Physiological crosssectional areas
muscle stress
Lagrangian Euler quation
joint angle
Link length

Link twist

di

Link offset

Joint angle

ac

Angular velocity of Tibia

Angular velocity of Femur
Angular acceleration of

Femur
v
f

Linear velocity of hip

Linear acceleration of hip

L-E
r

Wc

Table 6 Torque values for Ankle, Knee and Hip

obtained by using MATLAB (case 4)
Joint

8.419
4.47
0.0132

Nomenclature:
h
k
a
PCSA

Table 5 Torque values for Ankle, Knee and Hip

obtained by using MATLAB (case 3)
Joint

Torque
(N-m)

References:
[1] Fu, K.S., Gonzalez, R.C., and Lee,
C.S.G.,"Robotics: Control, Sensing, Vision, and
Intelligent. McGraw-Hill, New York,1987.
[2] R. K. Mittal, I. J. Nagrath, Robotics and control,
Tata McGraw-Hill publication edition 2003,
[3] S. S. Rattan, Theory of machines Tata
McGrawHill , New Delhi, edition 21st Dec 2004,
page-12-35
[4] Yashavant kanetkar, Let Us C, BPB
publication, 3rd edition, 1999, page 1-29.
[5] Robert Lafore, Object Oriented Programming in
Turbo C++, Golgotia publication Pvt. Ltd., 1994,
pages 1-31.
[6] Susannah K. S. Thorpe, Yu Li, Robin H.
Crompton And R. Mcneill Alexander, stresses in
human leg muscles in running and jumping
determined by force plate analysis and from

(N)

253

SuRP-B02.6
Design of Robotic Gait Rehabilitation, Journal of
Biomechanical Engineering AUGUST 2005, Vol.
127, 672-679.

published magnetic resonance images, The Journal of

Experimental Biology 201, 6370 (1998).
[7] Trent M. Guess and Lorin P. Maletsky,
computational modeling of a dynamic knee simulator for
prediction of joint loading 2003 Summer Bioengineering
Conference, June 25-29.
[8] Nathalie Doriot and Laurence Chze, A ThreeDimensional Kinematic and Dynamic Study of the Lower
Limb During the Stance Phase of Gait Using an
Homogeneous Matrix Approach, IEEE Transactions On
Biomedical Engineering, Vol. 51, No. 1, January 2004.
[9] Lorin P. Maletsky, Ben M. Hillberry, Simulating
dynamic activities using a Five-axis knee simulator
Journal
of
biomechanical
engineering,
2005, vol. 127, no1, pp. 123-133 [11 page(s) (article)]
[10] National Institute of Evaluation, Home > Top of
Human characteristics database > Human characteristics
database > Basic matters [Reference plane]
[11] NexGen Ergonomics 4.0 copyright 2003 by NexGen.
[12] Amy B. Zavatsky, Paul T. Oppold, Andrew J. Price,
Simultaneous In Vitro Measurement of Patellofemoral
Kinematics and Forces, Journal of Biomechanical
Engineering June 2004, Vol. 126/351.
[13] M. C. Miller, P. Smolinski, S. Conti, K. Galik,
Stresses in Polyethylene Liners in a Semi constrained
Ankle Prosthesis, Journal of Biomechanical Engineering
OCTOBER 2004, Vol. 126/ 637.
[14] T. Bull Andersen, E. B. Simonsen, Sudden Loading
during a Dynamic Lifting Task: A Simulation Study,
Journal of Biomechanical Engineering Feb. 2005, Vol.
127 / 109.
[15] M. Papini, R. Zdero, E. H. Schemitsch, P. Zalzal,
The Biomechanics of Human Femurs in Axial and
Torsional Loading: Comparison of Finite Element
Analysis, Human adaveric Femurs, and Synthetic
Femurs, Journal of Biomechanical Engineering Feb.
2007, Vol. 129 / 13
[16] Xiang-Rong Xu, Won-Jee Chung, Young-Hyu Choi,
A New Approach for Modeling and Computation of
Dynamics of Robots Containing Closed Chains
IEEE/RSJ, Intl. Conference on Intelligent Robots and
Systems Victoria, B.C., Canada October 1998.
[17] Goo Bong Chung, Byung-Ju Yi, Dong Jin Lim,
Wheekuk Kim, An Efficient Dynamic Modeling
Methodology for General Type of Hybrid Robotic
Systems IEEE International Conference on Robotics and
Automation, New Orleans, LA, April 2004.
[18] Shinichiro Nakaoka, Atsushi Nakazawa, Kazuhito
Yokoi and Katsushi Ikeuchi, Leg motion primitives for a
dancing humanoid robot IEEE International Conference
on Robotics and Automation, New Orleans, LA, April
2004.
[19] Chia-Yu E. Wang, James E. Bobrow, David J.
Reinkensmeyer, Dynamic Motion Planning for the
Design of Robotic Gait Rehabilitation Journal of
Biomechanical Engineering, Vol. 127, AUGUST 2005,
page 672-679.
[20] Chia-Yu E. Wang, James E. Bobrow, David J.
Reinkensmeyer, Dynamic Motion Planning for the

254