Difference: OptimizingWalking (8 vs. 9)

Contribution: The paper proposes a method for optimizing parameters of SIMBICON controller. The goal of the optimization is to produce more natural walking. The optimization function consists various task constraints and biomechanical features of human walking.

Evaluation: The method was compared to standard SIMBICON, which was claimed to be state-of-the art technology and showed more realistic results, such as ankle push-off strategy instead of hip push-off one. Next, the the influence of each term in the optimized function was demonstrated. Also, the authors carried out a comparison with motion capture data. The claim to be closer to mocap data than SIMBICON, but no real comparison is given (probably because it's just hard to compare?).

Reproducibility: The paper seems to be easily reproducible, but you never know if they unintentionally omitted value of some parameter...

Improvements: The authors note themselves that their model is less stable than SIMBICON, so maybe a different parameterization of controllers will solve this. And of course the motion is still far from motino capture data, but I'm not sure there are any papers demonstrating anything close to that.

-- MikhailBessmeltsev - 24 Nov 2011