A modified hybrid Van der Pol-Duffing-Rayleigh oscillator for modelling the lateral walking force on a rigid floor

The paper proposes a single degree of freedom oscillator in order to accurately represent the lateral force acting on a rigid floor due to human walking. As a pedestrian produces itself the energy required to maintain its motion, it can be modelled as a self-sustained oscillator that is able to produce: (i) self-sustained motion; (ii) a lateral periodic force signal; and (iii) a stable limit cycle. The proposed oscillator is a modification of hybrid Van der Pol-Duffing-Rayleigh oscillator, by introducing an additional nonlinear hardening term. Stability analysis of the proposed oscillator has been performed by using the energy balance method and the Lindstedt-Poincare perturbation technique. Model parameters were identified from the experimental force signals of ten pedestrians using the least squares identification technique. The experimental and the model generated lateral forces show a good agreement.