The Singularity Opening Approach to Control of Mechanical Systems with Constraints

Dynamical systems with controlled singularities, such as mechanical systems with active unilateral constraints, are characterized by the admission of the impulsive control actions within their singular motion phases. In a series of our recent works a novel physically based methodology for the singularity description in this class of systems was proposed. The present work introduces a new optimal control problem formulation for these systems, establishes the existence of the optimal solutions, and derives the optimality conditions. Copyright c ©IFAC, 2003