Velocity observers for nonlinear mechanical systems subject to nonsmooth impacts (Q1858358)

The authors study a mechanical system subject to impacts from the control point of view. Typical applications are the free-flying space robots because the impacts between the robot and environment constitute a significant feature of the robot task. The authors consider the estimation of the velocity variables for a nonlinear mechanical system subject to non-smooth impacts, both elastic and inelastic. A reduced-order observer, which guarantees a locally exponential stable error system, despite the presence of an infinite sequence of non-smooth impacts, is suggested. The Lyapunov stability technique is used.