A Mechanism for Reproducing Human Gait in Footwear Comfort Tests

This work describes the development of a conceptual articulated mechanism, which aims to reproduce the human foot movement during a walking gait in comfort tests for evaluating the quality of footwear. The main goal is to emulate such movement with relatively few degrees of freedom, so that the automatic control of the mechanism is facilitated. The general design of the mechanism is developed by reviewing current projects in the robotic field and comparing them to the anatomy of a real foot. Also, experimental data from video gammetry tests are employed to define the actual dimensions and the final configuration of the proposed system.