Abstract
The acceleration form of constraint equations is utilized in this paper to solve for the inverse dynamics of servo-constraints. A condition for the existence of control forces that enforce servo-constraints is derived. For overactuated dynamical systems, the generalized Moore-Penrose inverse of the constraint matrix is used to parameterize the solutions for these control forces in terms of free parameters that can be chosen to satisfy certain requirements or optimize certain criterions. In particular, these free parameters can be chosen to minimize the Gibbsian (i.e., the acceleration energy of the dynamical system), resulting in “ideal” control forces (those satisfying the principle of virtual work when the virtual displacements satisfy the servo-constraint equations). To achieve this, the nonminimal nonholonomic form recently derived by the authors in the context of Kane’s method is used to determine the accelerations of the system, and hence to determine the forces to be generated by the redundant manipulators. Finally, an extension to inverse dynamics of servo-constraints involving control variables is made. The procedures are illustrated by two examples.