A path planning of free flying object and its application to the control of gymnastic robot

Motions of animals and gymnasts in the air as well as free flying space robots without thruster are subject to nonholonomic constraints generated by the law of conservation of angular momentum. The interest in nonholonomic control problems is motivated by the fact that such systems can not stabilized to its equilibrium points by the smooth control input. The purpose of this paper is to derive analytical posture control laws for free flying objects in the air. We propose a control method using bang-bang control for trajectory planning of a 3 link mechanical system with initial angular momentum. We reduce the DOF (degrees of freedom) of control object in the first control phase and determine the control inputs to steer the reduced order system from its initial position to its desired position. Computer simulation for a motion planning of an athlete approximated by 3 link is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the Proposed control scheme.