This paper deals with twisting motion of a falling cat robot by two torque inputs around her waist. The cat robot consists of two rigid columns and has internally two actuators at the joint to generate torque inputs around the normal coordinates. This system is a nonholonomic system whose angular momentum is conserved. W e obtain the Lagrange’s equation of motion with nonholonomic constraint an...

As a flexible needle with a bevel tip is pushed through soft tissue, the asymmetry of the tip causes the needle to bend. We propose that, by using nonholonomic kinematics, control, and path planning, an appropriately designed needle can be steered through tissue to reach a specified 3D target. Such steering capability could enhance targeting accuracy and may improve outcomes for percutaneous th...

solvable by means of a simple hybrid control law, i.e., it is possible to achieve global exponential stability of the zero equilibrium in the presence of (small) perturbations vanishing at the origin. The control law retains the basic properties of the discontinuous control laws proposed in [1], namely exponential convergence rate and lack of oscillatory behavior. The results presented in this ...

As a flexible needle with a bevel tip is pushed through soft tissue, the asymmetry of the tip causes the needle to bend. We propose that, by using nonholonomic kinematics, control, and path planning, an appropriately designed needle can be steered through tissue to reach a specified 3D target. Such steering capability could enhance targeting accuracy and may improve outcomes for percutaneous th...

The paper considers the brachistochronic motion of a variable mass nonholonomic mechanical system [3] in a horizontal plane, between two specified positions. Variable mass particles are interconnected by a lightweight mechanism of the ‘pitchfork’ type. The law of the time-rate of mass variation of the particles, as well as relative velocities of the expelled particles, as a function of time, ar...

In this paper, it is elaborated the theory the Ricci flows for manifolds enabled with nonintegrable (nonholonomic) distributions defining nonlinear connection structures. Such manifolds provide a unified geometric arena for nonholonomic Riemannian spaces, Lagrange mechanics, Finsler geometry, and various models of gravity (the Einstein theory and string, or gauge, generalizations). We follow th...

Teleoperation based space systems have received much attention in the past years.This paper reports the construction and the remote control of a nonholonomic robotic system. The system consists of a three-wheeled mobile platform to keep the robot stable and a 6-DOF articulate manipulator on top of the platform. First, we explain how its design and work, then the kinematic model of the robotic p...

This paper is devoted to trajectory tracking control of port-controlled Hamiltonian systems based on generalized canonical transformations. A general framework of tracking control utilizing the passivity property is proposed. Firstly, it is shown how to construct an error system, which describes the dynamics of the tracking error, by a passive port-controlled Hamiltonian system. Secondly, a pra...

We prove the following nonholonomic version of the classical Moser theorem: given a bracket-generating distribution on a connected compact manifold (possibly with boundary), two volume forms of equal total volume can be isotoped by the flow of a vector field tangent to this distribution. We describe formal solutions of the corresponding nonholonomic mass transport problem and present the Hamilt...

In this paper we show how a generalized matching technique for stabilization may be applied to the Routhian associated with a low-dimensional nonholonomic system. The theory is illustrated with a simple model—a unicycle with rider.