Stability and Chaos in Passive-Dynamic Locomotion

Human locomotion is a complicated process, controlled and actuated by the neuro-muscular system. Tad McGeer [8], however, studied bipedal walking and completely neglected the neuro-muscular system in his models. Some of his machines, powered only by gravity, can walk stably and somewhat anthropomorphically down shallow slopes. We have continued study of the dynamics of McGeer-like physical and mathematical biped models that have little or no actuation or control. This paper summarizes some of our results.