Robotics

Exoskeleton walks out into the real world

For years, the Stanford Biomechatronics Laboratory has captured imaginations with their exoskeleton emulators—lab-based robotic devices that help wearers walk and run faster, with less effort. Now, these researchers will ...

Robotics

Shape-changing robots that adapt to their environments

When danger approaches, the Moroccan flic-flac spider takes the shape of a ball and rolls away to safety. Just as the trick of shape-shifting to one's environment has proved invaluable for many creatures, Yale researchers ...

Energy & Green Tech

New smart parking software cuts congestion, emissions

New smart parking software developed by Cornell University researchers, which matches drivers with parking garage spots based on travel time and other factors, could reduce congestion and emissions while saving drivers the ...

Robotics

A promising step in returning bipedal mobility

Engineers at Caltech have launched a new research initiative aimed at restoring natural and stable locomotion to individuals with walking deficiencies that result from spinal cord injuries and strokes.

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Walking

Walking (also called ambulation) is the main form of animal locomotion on land, distinguished from running and crawling. When carried out in shallow waters, it is usually described as wading and when performed over a steeply rising object or an obstacle it becomes scrambling or climbing. The word walk is descended from the Old English wealcan "to roll".

Walking is generally distinguished from running in that only one foot at a time leaves contact with the ground; for humans and other bipeds, running begins when both feet are off the ground with each step. (This distinction has the status of a formal requirement in competitive walking events, resulting in disqualification at the Olympic level.) For horses and other quadrupedal species, the running gaits may be numerous, and while walking keep three feet at a time on the ground.

The average human child achieves independent walking ability around 11 months old.

While not strictly bipedal, several primarily bipedal human gaits (where the long bones of the arms support at most a small fraction of the body's weight) are generally regarded as variants of walking. These include:

For humans, walking is the main form of transportation without a vehicle or riding animal. An average walking speed is about 5 to 6 km/h (3 to 4 mph), although this depends heavily on factors such as height, weight, age, terrain, surface, load, culture, and fitness. A pedestrian is a person who is walking on a road, sidewalk or path.

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