Equations of motion for mechanical systems: A unified approach

This paper presents a unified framework from which emerge the Lagrange equations, the Gibbs-Appell Equations and the Generalized Inverse Equations for describing the motion of constrained mechanical systems. The unified approach extends the applicability of the first two approaches to systems where the constraints are non-linear functions of the generalized velocities and are not necessarily independent. Furthermore, the approach leads to the Explicit Gibbs-Appell Equations.