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Updated: Feb 19, 2026

Subject-specific Musculoskeletal Model for Studying Bone Strain During Dynamic Motion
Published on: April 11, 2018
A contact model to simulate human-artifact interaction based on force optimization: implementation and application to
Daniel Krüger1, Sandro Wartzack1
1a Engineering Design, Department of Mechanical Engineering , Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) , Erlangen , Germany .
Abstract:
Musculoskeletal multibody models are increasingly used to analyze and optimize physical interactions between humans and technical artifacts. Since interaction is conveyed by contact between the human body and the artifact, a computationally robust modeling approach for frictional contact forces is a crucial aspect. In this contribution, we propose a parametric contact model and formulate an associated force optimization problem to simultaneously estimate unknown muscle and contact forces in an inverse dynamic manner from a prescribed motion trajectory. Unlike existing work, we consider both the static and the kinetic regime of Coulomb's friction law. The approach is applied to the analysis of a leg extension training machine with the objective to reduce the stress on the tibiofemoral joint. The uncertainty of the simulation results due to a tunable parameter of the contact model is of particular interest.
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