Swimming like Oscillators ? The Question of Modelling and Identifying Parameters

This paper addresses the knee and elbow evolution during a swimming cycle. From data collected in a sport lab, the aim is to construct an oscillator model and to identify parameters in order to exhibit the same dynamical behaviour. Litterature gives an idea of oscillators which can be use to start with. Indeed, in other sports, Van der Pol and Rayleigh nonlinear dynamical systems have already been used to model athletic movements. Starting from this point, we have applied a PSO-like algorithm to fit parameters with a hybrid theoretical model of Rayleigh-Van der Pol. Results are convincing for a restricted set of original data, showing that the chosen theoretical model has to be enhanced.