A Three-Dimensional Linked Segment Model of the Whole Human Body

A skeletal model of the whole human body was developed, and the script (computer program) of the model is reported in this paper. The model was constructed to be processed with a commercial package AUTOLEV (OnLine Dynamics, Sunnyvale, CA, USA). The model contains sixteen body segments, i.e., head, chest, mid-trunk, lower-trunk, right and left upper arms, right and left lower arms, right and left hands, right and left upper legs, right and left lower legs, and right and left feet. These segments are connected through the neck, chest, stomach, shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip, knee and ankle joints. The total degree of freedom of the model is 35. Passive joint properties of the trunk and lower limb were implemented. As an example, a motion similar to the flight phase of a horizontal jumping motion was simulated, in which the whole body traveled in the air from a given initial posture, with given initial velocities and angular velocities of body segments and joints. Readers can either simply copy the script reported in this paper, or make modifications as needed, to run a simulation. It is hoped that this paper helps encourage many researchers to utilize the technique of computer simulation for further development of individual projects.