Research News
New BBSRC Grant awarded to Dr Monica Daley
A new grant has been awarded to the Royal Veterinary College for £578,615 to work on "Mechanics and energetics of stable bipedal locomotion in uneven terrain: Does a trade-off exist between economy and stability?". The project is for 36 months.
(Photo courtesy of Karin Jespers)
Walking and running in natural terrain requires frequent adjustment for bumps, holes and obstacles. This project will extend models of locomotion to uneven terrain conditions to test whether a fundamental trade-off exists between economy and stability of locomotion. We will combine terrain height perturbation experiments and hypothesis driven modelling to investigate the stability and energy cost of walking and running in uneven terrain. This will reveal how bipeds select among stabilising strategies depending on terrain condition, speed and gait.
The goal is to develop theoretically and empirically grounded models of locomotion that apply to bipeds spanning a 500-fold range in body mass. The results will provide a framework for comparing stability across all bipeds from birds and humans to legged robots, and will have high potential for innovation in human fall prevention, gait rehabilitation, prosthetic design and the control of legged robots.
Dr Monica Daley, is a Lecturer in Locomotor Biomechanics, at the RVC.
Further Information
For more information about any of these stories please contact the RVC Press Office
See the Research News Archive for older stories.