A systematic approach for designing analytical dynamics and servo control of constrained mechanical systems

A systematic approach for designing analytical dynamics and servo control of constrained mechanical systems is proposed. Fundamental equation of constrained mechanical systems is first obtained according to Udwadia-Kalaba approach which is applicable to holonomic and nonholonomic constrained systems no matter whether they satisfy the D´Alember´s principle. The performance specifications are modeled as servo constraints. Constraint-following servo control is used to realize the servo constraints. For this inverse dynamics control problem, the determination of control inputs is based on the Moore-Penrose generalized inverse to complete the specified motion. Second-order constraints are used in the dynamics and servo control. Constraint violation suppression methods can be adopted to eliminate constraint drift in the numerical simulation. Furthermore, this proposed approach is applicable to not only fully actuated but also underactuated and redundantly actuated mechanical systems. Two-mass spring system and coordinated robot system are presented as examples for illustration.