Simple engineered mechanisms that can emulate human-like biomechanics are essential for robust performance of a number of engineered locomotion systems including anthropo-morphic bipedal robots lower-limb wearable exoskeletons and biologically-inspired prosthetic limbs. Ideally, successful emulation of human locomotion in artificial systems is built upon a foundation of simple models (theoretical or empirical) that can accurately characterize the normal mechanical behavior of the human limb in the gait.
The most common modern ankle-foot and knee prostheses, such as the works of Prof. Herr at MIT and Prof. Kuo at Univ. of Michigan, employ a limited number of spring stiffnesses in their design. The gait of an amputee who uses these quasi-passive compliant prostheses could approximately mimic the unaffected limb. However, the current devices still need to exhibit user and task adaptability. The success in the field of exoskeletal devices has been even more limited. Lower extremity exoskele-tons have not yet been able to augment human performance, and advanced orthoses have been mostly limited to latching mechanisms that rigidly support the joints when loaded.

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