Structure preserving simulation of muscle actuated movements

Biomechanical simulation of human locomotion is commonly done via dynamical simulations of multibody systems. The actuation of the system is thereby often represented via muscle models that create a force depending on muscle length and activation level. We show a comparison of such a simulation using a structure preserving integration framework to MATLAB/Simulink results. The conclusion is that structure preservation is important to represent such systems correctly, in particular concerning energy and angular momentum evolutions. We introduce a method for structure preserving simulation of muscle actuated movements. Additionally we show examples of a simple arm movement including only one muscle as well as a finger movement including up to six muscles as an example for more complex biomechanical systems. (© 2011 Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)