Neurological and engineering approaches to human postural control

This paper discusses the human postural control as a system engineering approach problem. Two main approaches are considered: neurological and engineering. From the neurological perspective, the problem is described, main sensory systems are identified, sensor fusion is suggested, and control system architecture and details are presented. Experimental results on both human subjects and on a special-purpose humanoid agree with the presented architecture. On the other hand, the humanoid parameters are identified, the humanoid dynamic model is derived, external-disturbance estimation methods are presented, a control method for stabilizing the body motion and then for robust tracking of voluntary motion in the presence of external disturbances is shown. This constitutes an engineering approach to this problem. Simulation results are given and it is shown that the presented method is capable of estimating the disturbances and for controlling the motion.