A switched control strategy in human balance

An inverted pendulum, controlled by a controller switching between optimal energy and decay gain, was proposed to describe the dynamics of humans standing on a harmonically moving platform. It was identified that humans use optimal energy gain to conserve energy and switch to the optimal decay gain to ensure safety. How often optimal decay gain is used is positively related to balance ability, leading to the proposal of new stabilometry parameters that have clear physical meaning, suggesting their potential for assessing early-stage declines in balance stability.