Security

Chinese 'gait recognition' tech IDs people by how they walk

Chinese authorities have begun deploying a new surveillance tool: "gait recognition" software that uses people's body shapes and how they walk to identify them, even when their faces are hidden from cameras.

Robotics

Making robotic assistive walking more natural

A paper published in the April 2022 issue of IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters outlines the AMBER team's method and represents the first instance of combining hybrid zero dynamics (HZD)—a mathematical framework for generating ...

Robotics

Robotic sea turtle mimics uniquely adaptable gait

Sea turtles can glide majestically through ocean waters and maneuver like armored vehicles over rocks and sand on land. Their locomotive adaptability makes them particularly interesting to robotics experts, who seek to learn ...

Engineering

AI-powered shoes unlock the secrets of your sole

Researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology have developed an AI-powered, smart insole that instantly turns any shoe into a portable gait-analysis laboratory.

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Gait

Gait is the pattern of movement of the limbs of animals, including humans, during locomotion over a solid substrate. Most animals use a variety of gaits, selecting gait based on speed, terrain, the need to maneuver, and energetic efficiency. Different animal species may use different gaits due to differences in anatomy that prevent use of certain gaits, or simply due to evolved innate preferences as a result of habitat differences. While various gaits are given specific names, the complexity of biological systems and interacting with the environment make these distinctions 'fuzzy' at best. Gaits are typically classified according to footfall patterns, but recent studies often prefer definitions based on mechanics. The term typically does not refer to limb-based propulsion through fluid mediums such as water or air, but rather to propulsion across a solid substrate by generating reactive forces against it (which can apply to walking while underwater as well as on land).

Due to the rapidity of animal movement, simple direct observation is rarely sufficient to give any insight into the pattern of limb movement. In spite of early attempts to classify gaits based on footprints or the sound of footfalls, it wasn't until Eadweard Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey began taking rapid series of photographs that proper scientific examination of gaits could begin.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA