Control of locomotion systems and dynamics in relative periodic orbits (Q2220264)

This article discusses the generation of trajectories for a class of drift-free control systems with Lie symmetry groups, known as (robotic) locomotion systems in terms of dynamic systems. The authors consider two features of the reconstruction process that are relevant to the construction of the trajectory. The first is that for a given non-compact group, one of two behaviors is possible -- either quasi-periodicity or drifting -- one of which can be predominant [\textit{P. Ashwin} and \textit{I. Melbourne}, Nonlinearity 10, No. 3, 595--616 (1997; Zbl 0912.35079); \textit{B. Fiedler} et al., Doc. Math. 1, 479--505 (1996; Zbl 0870.58014)]. This may be relevant for the trajectory generation with periodic control of locomotion systems: if the group is such that the predominant behavior is quasi-periodicity, then the choice of the periodic gait becomes important, because generic gaits will not produce a drift. The second feature is that motions in a relative periodic orbit exhibit ``spiraling'' or ``meandering'' behaviors. This behavior is revealed by numerical integration and it has been investigated in a number of works especially for infinite-dimensional systems. Since there is no quantitative description of meandering behavior for drifting motions, the authors investigate it for the class of Lie groups of interest for locomotions (semidirect products of a compact group and a normal vector space). The authors illustrate their results using simple travel systems (car robots and micro-swimmers).