Human standing balance is related to the positioning and motion of the body’s Center of Mass (CoM), which can be considered as the average position of all body parts weighted according to their masses. In quiet standing, balance is maintained when the center of mass is maintained over the base of support (BoS), defined as the support polygon that is made up by the contact surfaces between the feet and the ground and the space in between. Humans use two distinct strategies to maintain standing balance without additional supports: feet-in-place strategies that do not change the BoS, and stepping strategies that do. Hence the question arises, when do people switch from a feet-in-place to a reactive stepping strategy to maintain balance? Answering this question would not only provide insight in human balance strategies, but is also relevant for human-like controller design in the fields of humanoid robotics and exoskeletons.
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