Patent ID: 7119510

Claim:
A method of estimating a floor reaction force acting point of a biped walking mobile body for successively estimating the position of the floor reaction force acting point of each leg of a biped walking mobile body, comprising: a first step for successively grasping the position of the center of gravity of the biped walking mobile body, the position of an ankle joint of each leg, and the position of the metatarsophalangeal joint of the foot of the leg, respectively, and for successively grasping the vertical distance from the ankle joint to a ground contact surface of each leg in contact with the ground while the biped walking mobile body is in a motion, including at least level-ground walking; and a second step for successively estimating the horizontal position of the floor reaction force acting point of each leg in contact with the ground during the motion on the basis of a relative positional relationship among the position of the center of gravity, the position of the ankle joint, and the position of the metatarsophalangeal joint of the leg that have been grasped in the first step, and also for successively estimating the vertical position of the floor reaction force acting point of the leg as the position vertically apart downward from the ankle joint by the vertical distance from the ankle joint to the ground contact surface of the leg that has been grasped in the first step.