Nishii J
Yamaguchi University, Yoshida, Japan.
Biol Cybern. 2000 Nov;83(5):435-42. doi: 10.1007/s004220000175.
The gait transition in legged animals has attracted many researchers, and its relation to metabolic cost and mechanical work has been discussed in recent decades. We assumed that the energetic cost during locomotion is given by the sum of positive mechanical work and the heat energy loss that is proportional to the square of joint torque and examined the optimal locomotor pattern based on the energetic cost in a simple dynamical model of a hexapod by computer simulations. The obtained results well agree with characteristics in the locomotor patterns in legged animals; for example, the leg protraction time, step length, and the metabolic cost of transport are almost constant for many velocities, the leg cycling period decreases with velocity, and the energetic cost of locomotion induced by carrying loads linearly increases with mass loaded. This correspondence of the results of calculation to experimental results suggest that the heat energy loss for torque generation is proportional to the square of the torque during locomotion, and that the locomotor pattern in legged animals is highly optimized based on the energetic cost.
有腿动物的步态转变吸引了众多研究者，近几十年来，人们一直在探讨其与代谢成本和机械功的关系。我们假设运动过程中的能量消耗由正机械功与与关节扭矩平方成正比的热能损失之和给出，并通过计算机模拟在一个简单的六足动物动力学模型中基于能量消耗研究了最优运动模式。所得结果与有腿动物运动模式的特征非常吻合；例如，在许多速度下，腿部前伸时间、步长和运输代谢成本几乎恒定，腿部循环周期随速度降低，负载引起的运动能量消耗随负载质量线性增加。计算结果与实验结果的这种对应关系表明，运动过程中产生扭矩的热能损失与扭矩平方成正比，并且有腿动物的运动模式基于能量消耗进行了高度优化。
