31 research outputs found
Twisted isotropic realisations of twisted Poisson structures
Motivated by the recent connection between nonholonomic integrable systems
and twisted Poisson manifolds made in \cite{balseiro_garcia_naranjo}, this
paper investigates the global theory of integrable Hamiltonian systems on
almost symplectic manifolds as an initial step to understand Hamiltonian
integrability on twisted Poisson (and Dirac) manifolds. Non-commutative
integrable Hamiltonian systems on almost symplectic manifolds were first
defined in \cite{fasso_sansonetto}, which proved existence of local generalised
action-angle coordinates in the spirit of the Liouville-Arnol'd theorem. In
analogy with their symplectic counterpart, these systems can be described
globally by twisted isotropic realisations of twisted Poisson manifolds, a
special case of symplectic realisations of twisted Dirac structures considered
in \cite{bursztyn_crainic_weinstein_zhu}. This paper classifies twisted
isotropic realisations up to smooth isomorphism and provides a cohomological
obstruction to the construction of these objects, generalising the main results
of \cite{daz_delz}.Comment: 20 page
Conservation of `moving' energy in nonholonomic systems with affine constraints and integrability of spheres on rotating surfaces
Energy is in general not conserved for mechanical nonholonomic systems with
affine constraints. In this article we point out that, nevertheless, in certain
cases, there is a modification of the energy that is conserved. Such a function
coincides with the energy of the system relative to a different reference
frame, in which the constraint is linear. After giving sufficient conditions
for this to happen, we point out the role of symmetry in this mechanism.
Lastly, we apply these ideas to prove that the motions of a heavy homogeneous
solid sphere that rolls inside a convex surface of revolution in uniform
rotation about its vertical figure axis, are (at least for certain parameter
values and in open regions of the phase space) quasi-periodic on tori of
dimension up to three
Hamiltonian monodromy via geometric quantization and theta functions
In this paper, Hamiltonian monodromy is studied from the point of view of
geometric quantization abd theta functions, and various differential geometric
aspects thereof are dealt with, all related to holonomies of suitable flat
connections.Comment: 18 page
Moving energies as first integrals of nonholonomic systems with affine constraints
In nonholonomic mechanical systems with constraints that are affine (linear
nonhomogeneous) functions of the velocities, the energy is typically not a
first integral. It was shown in [Fass\`o and Sansonetto, JNLS, 26, (2016)]
that, nevertheless, there exist modifications of the energy, called there
moving energies, which under suitable conditions are first integrals. The first
goal of this paper is to study the properties of these functions and the
conditions that lead to their conservation. In particular, we enlarge the class
of moving energies considered in [Fass\`o and Sansonetto, JNLS, 26, (2016)].
The second goal of the paper is to demonstrate the relevance of moving energies
in nonholonomic mechanics. We show that certain first integrals of some well
known systems (the affine Veselova and LR systems), which had been detected on
a case-by-case way, are instances of moving energies. Moreover, we determine
conserved moving energies for a class of affine systems on Lie groups that
include the LR systems, for a heavy convex rigid body that rolls without
slipping on a uniformly rotating plane, and for an -dimensional
generalization of the Chaplygin sphere problem to a uniformly rotating
hyperplane.Comment: 25 pages, 1 figure. Final version prepared according to the
modifications suggested by the referees of Nonlinearit
First Integrals and symmetries of nonholonomic systems
In nonholonomic mechanics, the presence of constraints in the velocities
breaks the well-under\-stood link between symmetries and first integrals of
holonomic systems, expressed in Noether's Theorem. However there is a known
special class of first integrals of nonholonomic systems generated by vector
fields tangent to the group orbits, called {\it horizontal gauge momenta}, that
suggest that some version of this link should still hold. In this paper we
prove that, under certain conditions on the symmetry Lie group, the
(nonholonomic) momentum map is conserved along the nonholonomic dynamics, thus
extending Noether Theorem to the nonholonomic framework. Our analysis leads to
a constructive method, with fundamental consequences to the integrability of
some nonholonomic systems as well as their hamiltonization. We apply our
results to three paradigmatic examples: the snakeboard, a solid of revolution
rolling without sliding on a plane and a heavy homogeneous ball that rolls
without sliding inside a convex surface of revolution. In particular, for the
snakeboard we show the existence of a new horizontal gauge momentum that
reveals new aspects of its integrability
A Geometric Characterization of Certain First Integrals for Nonholonomic Systems with Symmetries
We study the existence of first integrals in nonholonomic systems with symmetry. First we define the concept of M -cotangent lift of a vector field on a manifold Q in order to unify the works [Balseiro P., Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 214 (2014), 453-501, arXiv:1301.1091], [Fosse F., Ramos A., Sansonetto N., Regul. Chaotic Dyn. 12 (2007), 579588], and [Fosse F., Giacobbe A., Sansonetto N., Rep. Math. Phys. 62 (2008), 345-367]. Second, we study gauge symmetries and gauge momenta, in the cases in which there are the symmetries that satisfy the so-called vertical symmetry condition. Under such condition we can predict the number of linearly independent first integrals (that are gauge momenta). We illustrate the theory with two examples
Overcoming some drawbacks of Dynamic Movement Primitives
Dynamic Movement Primitives (DMPs) is a framework for learning a point-to-point trajectory from a demonstration. Despite being widely used, DMPs still present some shortcomings that may limit their usage in real robotic applications. Firstly, at the state of the art, mainly Gaussian basis functions have been used to perform function approximation. Secondly, the adaptation of the trajectory generated by the DMP heavily depends on the choice of hyperparameters and the new desired goal position. Lastly, DMPs are a framework for ‘one-shot learning’, meaning that they are constrained to learn from a unique demonstration. In this work, we present and motivate a new set of basis functions to be used in the learning process, showing their ability to accurately approximate functions while having both analytical and numerical advantages w.r.t. Gaussian basis functions. Then, we show how to use the invariance of DMPs w.r.t. affine transformations to make the generalization of the trajectory robust against both the choice of hyperparameters and new goal position, performing both synthetic tests and experiments with real robots to show this increased robustness. Finally, we propose an algorithm to extract a common behavior from multiple observations, validating it both on a synthetic dataset and on a dataset obtained by performing a task on a real robot
On the Dynamics of a Heavy Symmetric Ball that Rolls Without Sliding on a Uniformly Rotating Surface of Revolution
We study the class of nonholonomic mechanical systems formed by a heavy symmetric ball that rolls without sliding on a surface of revolution, which is either at rest or rotates about its (vertical) figure axis with uniform angular velocity Omega. The first studies of these systems go back over a century, but a comprehensive understanding of their dynamics is still missing. The system has an SO(3) x SO(2) symmetry and reduces to four dimensions. We extend in various directions, particularly from the case Omega = 0 to the case Omega not equal 0, a number of previous results and give new results. In particular, we prove that the reduced system is Hamiltonizable even if Omega not equal 0 and, exploiting the recently introduced "moving energy," we give sufficient conditions on the profile of the surface that ensure the periodicity of the reduced dynamics and hence the quasiperiodicity of the unreduced dynamics on tori of dimension up to three. Furthermore, we determine all the equilibria of the reduced system, which are classified in three distinct families, and determine their stability properties. In addition to this, we give a new form of the equations of motion of nonholonomic systems in quasi-velocities which, at variance from the well-known Hamel equations, use any set of quasi-velocities and explicitly contain the reaction forces
On the number of weakly Noetherian constants of motion of nonholonomic systems
We develop a method to give an estimate on the number of functionally independent constants of motion of a nonholonomic system with symmetry which have the so called 'weakly Noetherian' property [22]. We show that this number is bounded from above by the corank of the involutive closure of a certain distribution on the constraint manifold. The effectiveness of the method is illustrated on several examples