Controllability and observability in the problem of stabilizing mechanical systems with cyclic coordinates

An approach based on linear control theory is used to solve the problem of stabilizing the steady motions of holonomic mechanical systems in which only cyclic coordinates are controllable [1–3]. The most general structure of forces acting on the system is considered and it is assumed that the constraints imposed are time-independent. The set of new criteria of controllability and observability based on the reduction of the problem under consideration is obtained. The reduction enables one to reduce the investigation of these problems to an analysis of a problem of less dimensions.     

Controllability and stabilization of programmed motions of reversible mechanical and electromechanical systems

Problems of controllability and methods of stabilizing programmed motions of a large class of mechanical and electromechanical systems which are reversible with respect to the control are considered. Criteria of the controllability and stabilizability of reversible systems are obtained. Programmed motions and algorithms of programmed control are designed in analytical form and algorithms of programmed motions for non-linear reversible systems are synthesized.     

Logarithmic matrix norms in motion stability problems

The problem of the stability of the motions of mechanical systems, described by non-linear non-autonomous systems of ordinary differential equations, is considered. Using the logarithmic matrix norm method, and constructing a reference system, the sufficient conditions for the asymptotic and exponential stability of unperturbed motion and for the stabilization of progammed motions of such systems are obtained. The problem of the asymptotic stability of a non-conservative system with two degrees of freedom is solved, taking for parametric disturbances into account. Examples of the solution of the problem of stabilizing programmed motions – for an inverted double pendulum and for a two-link manipulator on a stationary base – are considered.     

Stabilization of the motions of mechanical systems with variable masses

A holonomic mechanical system with variable masses and cyclic coordinates is considered. Such a system can have generalized steady motions in which the positional coordinates are constant and the cyclic velocities under the action of reactive forces vary according to a given law. Sufficient Routh-Rumyantsev-type conditions for the stability of such motions are determined. The problem of stabilizing a given translational-rotational motion of a symmetric satellite in which its centre of mass moves in a circular orbit and the satellite executes rotational motion about its axis of symmetry is solved.     

Reverse motions of mechanical systems

The possibility of the occurrence of sections of reverse motions in natural mechanical systems, when, in the second half of a time interval, the motion in the first half of the interval is repeated in the reverse order and the opposite velocity with a specified accuracy, is investigated. It is shown that such motions are characteristic of natural mechanical systems in the neighbourhood of a non-degenerate equilibrium position if the natural frequencies are independent. Systems with gyroscopic and dissipative forces are also considered. It is shown that, in these systems, sections of reverse motion can be observed in a special system of coordinates. Examples are presented.     

The stability and stabilization of the motion of non-conservative mechanical systems

Two stability problems are solved. In the first, the stability of mechanical systems, on which dissipative, gyroscopic, potential and positional non-conservative forces (systems of general form) act, is investigated. The stability is considered in the case when the potential energy has a maximum at equilibrium. The condition for asymptotic stability is obtained by constructing Lyapunov's function. In the second problem, the possibility of stabilizing a gyroscopic system with two degrees of freedom up to asymptotic stability using non-linear dissipative and positional non-conservative forces is investigated. Stability of the gyroscopic system is achieved by gyroscopic stabilization. The stability conditions are obtained in terms of the system parameters. Cases when the gyroscopic stabilization is disrupted by these non-linear forces are indicated.     

On the stability of the steady-state motions of systems with quasicyclic coordinates

The stability of the steady-state motions of a system with quasicyclic coordinates under the action of potential and dissipative forces and also forces which depend on the quasicyclic velocities is investigated. The results are applied to the problem of the stability of the steadystate plane-parallel motions of a rotor on a shaft which is set up in elasticated bearings with a non-linear reaction /1/.

The stability of the stationary motions and relative equilibria of systems with a single cyclic (quasicyclic) coordinate has previously been investigated /2/ from a common point of view. The question of the stability of the stationary motions of systems with quasicyclic coordinates under the action of constant and dissipative forces has been considered in /3/. The results obtained in /2/ have been generalized /4/ to systems with several cyclic (quasicyclic) coordinates and, additionally, a third regime of uniform motions, which includes the regime considered in /3/, has also been investigated.     

The stability and stabilization of non-linear,non-stationary mechanical systems

Mechanical systems acted upon by extremely non-linear positional forces are considered. The decomposition method is used to determine the sufficient conditions for asymptotic stability of an equilibrium. Problems of stabilizing the equilibrium of non-linear, non-stationary systems with specified potential forces by adding forces of different structure are studied. For systems with a non-stationary, homogeneous, positive-definite potential, the possibility of stabilization by linear dissipative forces, uncharacteristic of linear systems, is established. For systems with an even number of coordinates n ≥ 4, in the presence of dissipative forces with complete dissipation, the possibility of vibrational stabilization by adding circular and gyroscopic forces with coefficients fluctuating about zero is demonstrated.     

The influence of dissipative and constant forces on the form and stability of steady motions of mechanical systems with cyclic coordinates

Mechanical systems with cyclic coordinates subject to dissipative forces with complete dissipation and constant forces applied only to the cyclic variables are considered. Problems of the existence of steady motions in such systems and the conditions for their stability are discussed. It is shown, in particular, that if the Rayleigh function is proportional to the kinetic energy, the stability conditions for the steady motions of the system are the same as or (under certain assumptions) similar to such conditions for steady motions of a corresponding conservative system. The example of a physical pendulum is used to show that such conclusions are generally false: dissipative and constant forces may cause destabilization of stable motions of the system.     

The exponential stability and stabilization of non-autonomous mechanical systems with non-conservative forces

The exponential stability of the unperturbed motion of a non-autonomous mechanical system with a complete set of forces, that is, dissipative, gyroscopic, potential and non-conservative positional forces, is investigated. The problem of stabilizing a non-autonomous system with specified non-conservative forces is considered with and without the use of potential forces. The problem of stabilizing a non-autonomous system with specified potential forces by the action of the forces of another structure is studied. The domain of stabilizability of the relative equilibrium position of a satellite in a circular orbit is found.     

Further classification of 2D integrable mechanical systems with quadratic invariants

Four new integrable classes of mechanical systems on Riemannian 2D manifolds admitting a complementary quadratic invariant are introduced. Those systems have quite rich structure. They involve 11–12 arbitrary parameters that determine the metric of the configuration space and forces with scalar and vector potentials. Interpretations of special versions of them are pointed out as problems of motions of rigid body in a liquid or under action of potential and gyroscopic forces and as motions of a particle on the plane, sphere, ellipsoid, pseudo-sphere and other surfaces.     

The optimal periodic motions of a two-mass system in a resistant medium

The rectilinear motions of a two-mass system, consisting of a container and an internal mass, in a medium with resistance, are considered. The displacement of the system as a whole occurs due to periodic motion of the internal mass with respect to the container. The optimal periodic motions of the system, corresponding to the greatest velocity of displacement of the system as a whole, averaged over a period, are constructed and investigated using a simple mechanical model. Different laws of resistance of the medium, including linear and quadratic resistance, isotropic and anisotropic, and also a resistance in the form of dry-friction forces obeying Coulomb's law, are considered.     

Methods of stabilizing the motions of reversible dynamic systems using non-linear canonical transformations

Methods of synthesizing stabilizing and robust control laws for non-linear reversible systems which ensure asymptotic stability of programmed motions, specified figures of merit and decomposition of transients are considered. Non-linear canonical transformations of state space and the controls are obtained which simplify the synthesis and analysis of the laws of the stabilization of reversible dynamic systems.     

Control of mechanical systems with uncertain parameters by means of small forces

An approach to the construction of a feedback control for non-linear Lagrange mechanical systems with uncertain parameters is developed. A Lagrange mechanical system with uncertain parameters, which is subject to the action of potential forces, control forces and unknown perturbations is considered is considered. It is assumed that the potential forces can be considerably greater than the control forces which, in their turn, are greater than the perturbations. An approach to the construction of a control, is proposed which enables one to bring a system from an arbitrary initial state to a specified final state in a finite time using a bounded control. A procedure, in which the specified nominal trajectory of the motion is tracked, is used. Initially, the trajectory, joining the specified initial and final states of the system, is constructed for a certain dynamical system which is close to the initial system but with completely known parameters. Then, using deviation equations, a control is constructed which brings the initial system onto this nominal trajectory in a finite time and subsequently forces the system to move along this nominal trajectory up to the final state. The control law used in tracking the nominal trajectory is based on a linear feedback, the gains of which depends on the discrepancy between the real trajectory and the nominal trajectory. The gain increase and tend to infinity as the discrepancies tend to zero but the control forces remain bounded and satisfy the conditions imposed on them. The results of numerical modelling of the controlled motions of a plane double pendulum are presented as an illustration.     

A numerical evaluation of solvers for the periodic Riccati differential equation

Efficient and accurate structure exploiting numerical methods for solving the periodic Riccati differential equation (PRDE) are addressed. Such methods are essential, for example, to design periodic feedback controllers for periodic control systems. Three recently proposed methods for solving the PRDE are presented and evaluated on challenging periodic linear artificial systems with known solutions and applied to the stabilization of periodic motions of mechanical systems. The first two methods are of the type multiple shooting and rely on computing the stable invariant subspace of an associated Hamiltonian system. The stable subspace is determined using either algorithms for computing an ordered periodic real Schur form of a cyclic matrix sequence, or a recently proposed method which implicitly constructs a stable deflating subspace from an associated lifted pencil. The third method reformulates the PRDE as a convex optimization problem where the stabilizing solution is approximated by its truncated Fourier series. As known, this reformulation leads to a semidefinite programming problem with linear matrix inequality constraints admitting an effective numerical realization. The numerical evaluation of the PRDE methods, with focus on the number of states (n) and the length of the period (T) of the periodic systems considered, includes both quantitative and qualitative results.     

The existence and stability of the equilibria of mechanical systems with constraints produced by large potential forces

A modification of Routh's theorem is investigated for systems with unilateral constraints produced by large potential forces, which enables steady motions to be found and the sufficient conditions for their stability to be investigated. The problem of an orbital “monkey bridge” is considered as an example.     

Stabilization of the motions of mechanical systems in prescribed phase-space manifolds

A method for constructing a mathematical model of the dynamics of a mechanical system is proposed. An algorithm is constructed for determining the expressions for the control forces and the components of the constraint reactions. A modification is made to the dynamic equations which enables one to solve the problem of stabilizing the constraints and which ensures the required accuracy in the numerical solution of the corresponding system of differential-algebraic equations describing the constraints imposed on the system, its kinematics and dynamics. By virtue of well-known dynamic analogies, the proposed method can be used to investigate the dynamics of different physical systems. The problem of modelling the dynamics of an adaptive optical system with two degrees of freedom is considered.     

The influence of friction forces on the dynamics of a two-link mobile robot

Controlled periodic motions of a planar two-link robot in a horizontal plane when there is dry friction are considered. The two-link is controlled by means of an internal torque applied to the joint connecting the links. The dynamics of the two-link, taking into account the influence of friction forces and the constrained nature of the control torque, is analysed assuming that the angle between the links is small. The conventional locomotion algorithm of a two-link is modified to ensure rectilinear displacement of the two-link. The influence of various geometrical and mechanical parameters of the system on the average rate of locomotion and on the power consumption during the motion of the two-link robot in a plane is investigated.     

Gyroscopic stabilization of nonconservative systems

The problem is considered of the stabilization of a mechanical system having only nonconservative positional forces by adding gyroscopic forces. The gyroscopic stabilization is proved to be always realizable in the case of a degenerate matrix of nonconservative forces and even number of coordinates. If the matrix of nonconservative forces is nonsingular then a possibility of the gyroscopic stabilization is established for all systems whose number of coordinates is divisible by four. For a nonautonomous systemwith nonconservative positional forces and dissipative forces with complete dissipation, some sufficient conditions are obtained for stabilization up to the exponential stability by addition of gyroscopic forces.     

Asymptotic properties of the solutions of the equations of motion of gyroscopic systems

The motion of mechanical systems acted upon by gyroscopic and positional forces characterized by a large parameter in the corresponding equations of motion is considered. Periodic solutions of such equations were investigated earlier in [1, 2]. It is proved below that solutions of these equations exist, defined in an interval the length of which is a monotonically increasing unbounded function of the large parameter, and which transfer into the solutions of the corresponding degenerate systems as the large parameter approaches infinity. This function can be specified in more detail if additional assumptions are made regarding the properties of the system and the nature of the forces acting on it.