Energy analysis of the human gait: A comparison between natural gait and with jumping stilts

The purpose of this work is to evaluate the mechanical energy exchange during the gait cycle of a subject equipped with energy storage devices (jumping stilts). For comparison, the same evaluation was carried out in a gait cycle with no jumping stilts (natural gait). First, a video of the motion was recorded, then the video frames were post-processed to obtain the sagittal plane trajectories of eleven markers (geometric points) placed onto the subject and finally a numerical code was developed to build up a multi-bodies model able to compute the mechanical energy during the gait. Further, the results from the multi-bodies model were compared with those from a simplified model based on the motion of the centre of mass of the subject.