Nonholonomic multibody dynamics (Q1871976)

In the first part of the article the authors discuss some ideas for developing a unified geometric basis for modeling, simulation and control of nonholonomic multibody systems. In classical tensor notation they describe the setting up of equations of motion for multibody systems, the inclusion of constraints and the relation between nonholonomy and controllability. In the second part two special types of nonholonomic constraints, the rolling and the edge condition, respectively, on double-edged surfaces, are studied in more details, and some results from numerical simulations of concrete problems are presented.