Movement Lab - Manoj Srinivasan

We are interested in understanding the movement of things: humans, other animals, and machines.

Some central scientific questions are: Why do animals move the way they do? And how do they do it so well? We are interested in obtaining a simple and tractable, yet complete, theory of legged locomotion and sensorimotor control in humans and other animals -- a theory that will reliably predict how an animal will act in a novel situation (say, humans on the moon), how the animal will respond to perturbations (say, stepping on a banana peel), or how we should design better wearable robotics such as robotic prostheses and exoskeletons and other biomechatronic assistive devices. We use a mixture of mathematics, modeling, computation, and experiments.

The Movement Lab is located within the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the Ohio State University and is led by Manoj Srinivasan.

We hosted the Dynamic Walking Conference (2015) at Ohio State.

Some recent journal articles.

-- Nidhi Seethapathi, Barrett Clark and Manoj Srinivasan. Exploration-based learning of a step to step controller predicts locomotor adaptation. 2024. Nature Communications.

-- Geoff Brown*, Nidhi Seethapathi*, Manoj Srinivasan. A unified energy optimality criterion predicts human navigation paths and speeds. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, e2020327118, 118, 2021. PDF. Appendix/Data. *Equal authorship.

-- Varun Joshi and Manoj Srinivasan. A controller for walking derived from how humans recover from perturbations. Journal of Royal Society Interface, 16, 2019. Webpage for the paper + PDF Downloads.

-- Nidhi Seethapathi and Manoj Srinivasan. Step-to-step variations in human running reveal how humans run without falling. eLife, 8, e38371, 2019. Webpage for the paper + PDF Downloads.

-- Varun Joshi and Manoj Srinivasan. Walking crowds on a shaky surface: Stable walkers discover Millennium Bridge oscillations with and without pedestrian synchrony. Biology Letters, 14, 2018. Webpage for the paper + PDF Downloads.

-- Matthew L. Handford and Manoj Srinivasan. Energy-optimal human walking with feedback-controlled robotic prostheses: a computational study. IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 26, 1773-1782, 2018. Webpage for the paper + PDF Downloads. PDF

-- Matthew L. Handford and Manoj Srinivasan. Energy-optimal human walking with feedback-controlled robotic prostheses: a computational study. IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 26, 1773-1782, 2018. Webpage for the paper + PDF Downloads. PDF

-- Matthew Handford and Manoj Srinivasan. Robotic lower limb prosthesis design through simultaneous computer optimizations of human and prosthesis costs. Article PDF + Supplementary Information, Nature Scientific Reports, 6, 19983, 2016.
A webpage for the paper with videos and more information.

-- Nidhi Seethapathi and Manoj Srinivasan. The metabolic cost of changing walking speeds is significant, implies lower optimal speeds for shorter distances, and increases daily energy estimates. Accepted with minor revision, 11, 20150486, 2015. Link to journal article. Link to Data (Dryad). Article PDF+Supplementary Appendix.
Here is a webpage for the paper with videos and data.

Prospective students and post-docs:

While we always welcome emails from all students and others from near and far, we may not consider taking on additional students at this point, for the next 6 months. We realize that writing a letter of application to a faculty member takes time, effort, and research, and we provide this information so that you can allocate your attention and resources most effectively.

Press:

Our research has been featured in a few popular science and news media, including the National Geographic Channel, the Discovery Channel, National Public Radio, New Scientist, etc. Please see the Press/MEDIA page for videos, audio, and articles about our work. But please see our papers if you want the full story.