A multi-phase optimal control technique for the simulation of a human vertical jump

A multi-phase optimal control technique is presented that can be used to solve dynamic optimization problems involving musculoskeletal systems. The biomechanical model consists of a set of differential equations describing the dynamics of the multi-body system and the generation of the dynamic forces of the human muscles. Within the optimization technique, subintervals can be defined in which the differential equations are continuous. At the boundaries the dimension of the state- and control vector as well as the dimension of the right-hand side may change. The problem is solved by a multiple shooting approach which converts the problem into a non-linear program. The method is applied to simulate a human jump movement. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.