Controllability and observability in the problem of stabilizing steady motions of non-holonomic mechanical systems with cyclic coordinatest

The approach to the solution of stabilization problems for steady motions of holonomic mechanical systems 1, 2] based on linear control theory, combined with the theory of critical cases of stability theory, is used to solve the analogous problems for non-holonomic systems. It is assumed that the control forces may affect both cyclic and positional coordinates, where the number r of independent control inputs may be considerably less than the number n of degrees of freedom of the system, unlike in many other studies (see, e.g., 3–5]), in which as a rule r = n. Several effective new criteria of controllability and observability are formulated, based on reducing the problem to a problem of less dimension. Stability analysis is carried out for the trivial solution of the complete non-linear system, closed by a selected control. This analysis is a necessary step in solving the stabilization problem for steady motion of a non-holonomic system (unlike holonomic systems), since in most cases such a system is not completely controllable.