Journal of biomechanical engineering
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Currently there is no commonly accepted way to define, much less quantify, locomotor stability. In engineering, "orbital stability" is defined using Floquet multipliers that quantify how purely periodic systems respond to perturbations discretely from one cycle to the next. For aperiodic systems, "local stability" is defined by local divergence exponents that quantify how the system responds to very small perturbations continuously in real time. ⋯ Correlations between Max FM values and previously published local divergence exponents were inconsistent and 11 of the 12 comparisons made were not statistically significant (r2 < or = 19.8%; p > or = 0.049). Thus, the variability inherent in human walking, which manifests itself as local instability, does not substantially adversely affect the orbital stability of walking. The results of this study will allow future efforts to gain a better understanding of where the boundaries lie between locally unstable movements that remain orbitally stable and those that lead to global instability (i.e., falling).