Analysis and control of the falling cat phenomenon

In this paper, we investigate so-called the falling cat problem. It is well known that a cat, when released from an upside down configuration starting from rest, is able to land on her feet without violating angular momentum conservation. This has being an interesting problem for engineers for a long time. We consider a model of a falling cat as connected two rigid columns, which is a nonholonomic system. We design the controller for it, using time- state control form of the model and exact linearization technique. Finally, we test the controller thorough simulation on the model of a falling cat.