A Lagrange--d'Alembert integrator is a geometric numerical method for finding numerical solutions to the Lagrange--d'Alembert equations for mechanical systems with nonholonomic constraints that are linear in the velocities. The integrator is developed from geometry and principles that are analogues of the continuous theory.<p>Using discrete analogues of the symplectic form and momentum map, the resulting methods are symplectic and momentum preserving whenever the continuous system is symplectic and momentum preserving. In addition, it is possible to, in principle, generate Lagrange--d'Alembert integrators of any method order.

A Lagrange--d'Alembert integrator is a geometric numerical method for finding numerical solutions to the Lagrange--d'Alembert equations for mechanical systems with nonholonomic constraints that are linear in the velocities. The integrator is developed from geometry and principles that are analogues of the continuous theory.<p>Using discrete analogues of the symplectic form and momentum map, the resulting methods are symplectic and momentum preserving whenever the continuous system is symplectic and momentum preserving. In addition, it is possible to, in principle, generate Lagrange--d'Alembert integrators of any method order.

In this thesis is initiated a more systematic geometric exploration of energy shaping. Most of the previous results have been dealt wih particular cases and neither the existence nor the space of solutions has been discussed with any degree of generality. The geometric theory of partial differential equations originated by Goldschmidt and Spencer in late 1960s is utilized to analyze the partial differential equations in energy shaping. The energy shaping partial differential equations are described as a fibered submanifold of a $ k $-jet bundle of a fibered manifold. By revealing the nature of kinetic energy shaping, similarities are noticed between the problem of kinetic energy shaping and some well-known problems in Riemannian geometry. In particular, there is a strong similarity between kinetic energy shaping and the problem of finding a metric connection initiated by Eisenhart and Veblen. We notice that the necessary conditions for the set of so-called $ \lambda $-equation restricted to the control distribution are related to the Ricci identity, similarly to the Eisenhart and Veblen metric connection problem. Finally, the set of $ \lambda $-equations for kinetic energy shaping are coupled with the integrability results of potential energy shaping. The procedure shows how a poor design of closed-loop metric can make it impossible to achieve any flexibility in the character of the possible closed-loop potential function. The integrability results of this thesis have been used to answer some interesting questions about the energy shaping. In particular, a geometric proof is provided which shows that linear controllability is sufficient for energy shaping of linear simple mechanical systems. Furthermore, it is shown that all linearly controllable mechanical control systems with one degree of underactuation can be stabilized using energy shaping feedback. The result is geometric and completely characterizes the energy shaping problem for these systems. Using the geometric approach of this thesis, some new open problems in energy shaping are formulated. In particular, we give ideas for relating the kinetic energy shaping problem to a problem on holonomy groups. Moreover, we suggest that the so-called Fakras lemma might be used for investigating the stabilization condition of energy shaping. / Thesis (Ph.D, Mathematics & Statistics) -- Queen's University, 2009-09-02 12:12:55.051

Light transport simulation aims at the numerical computation of the propagation of visible electromagnetic energy in macroscopic environments. In this thesis, we develop the foundations for a modern theory of light transport simulation, unveiling the geometric structure of the continuous theory and providing a formulation of computational techniques that furnishes remarkably efficacy with only local information. Utilizing recent results from various communities, we develop the physical and mathematical structure of light transport from Maxwell's equations by studying a lifted representation of electromagnetic theory on the cotangent bundle. At the short wavelength limit, this yields a Hamiltonian description on six-dimensional phase space, with the classical formulation over the space of "positions and directions" resulting from a reduction to the five-dimensional cosphere bundle. We establish the connection between light transport and geometrical optics by a non-canonical Legendre transform, and we derive classical concepts from radiometry, such as radiance and irradiance, by considering measurements of the light energy density. We also show that in idealized environments light transport is a Lie-Poisson system for the group of symplectic diffeomorphisms, unveiling a tantalizing similarity between light transport and fluid dynamics. Using Stone's theorem, we also derive a functional analytic description of light transport. This bridges the gap to existing formulations in the literature and naturally leads to computational questions. We then address one of the central challenges for light transport simulation in everyday environments with scattering surfaces: how are efficient computations possible when the light energy density can only be evaluated pointwise? Using biorthogonal and possibly overcomplete bases formed by reproducing kernel functions, we develop a comprehensive theory for computational techniques that are restricted to pointwise information, subsuming for example sampling theorems, interpolation formulas, quadrature rules, density estimation schemes, and Monte Carlo integration. The use of overcomplete representations makes us thereby robust to imperfect information, as is often unavoidable in practical applications, and numerical optimization of the sampling locations leads to close to optimal techniques, providing performance which considerably improves over the state of the art in the literature.

Light transport simulation aims at the numerical computation of the propagation of visible electromagnetic energy in macroscopic environments. In this thesis, we develop the foundations for a modern theory of light transport simulation, unveiling the geometric structure of the continuous theory and providing a formulation of computational techniques that furnishes remarkably efficacy with only local information. Utilizing recent results from various communities, we develop the physical and mathematical structure of light transport from Maxwell's equations by studying a lifted representation of electromagnetic theory on the cotangent bundle. At the short wavelength limit, this yields a Hamiltonian description on six-dimensional phase space, with the classical formulation over the space of "positions and directions" resulting from a reduction to the five-dimensional cosphere bundle. We establish the connection between light transport and geometrical optics by a non-canonical Legendre transform, and we derive classical concepts from radiometry, such as radiance and irradiance, by considering measurements of the light energy density. We also show that in idealized environments light transport is a Lie-Poisson system for the group of symplectic diffeomorphisms, unveiling a tantalizing similarity between light transport and fluid dynamics. Using Stone's theorem, we also derive a functional analytic description of light transport. This bridges the gap to existing formulations in the literature and naturally leads to computational questions. We then address one of the central challenges for light transport simulation in everyday environments with scattering surfaces: how are efficient computations possible when the light energy density can only be evaluated pointwise? Using biorthogonal and possibly overcomplete bases formed by reproducing kernel functions, we develop a comprehensive theory for computational techniques that are restricted to pointwise information, subsuming for example sampling theorems, interpolation formulas, quadrature rules, density estimation schemes, and Monte Carlo integration. The use of overcomplete representations makes us thereby robust to imperfect information, as is often unavoidable in practical applications, and numerical optimization of the sampling locations leads to close to optimal techniques, providing performance which considerably improves over the state of the art in the literature.

This report provides an introduction to geometric mechanics, which seeks to model the behavior of physical mechanical systems using differential geometric objects. In addition to its elegance as a method of representation, this formulation also admits the application of powerful analytical techniques from geometry as an aid to understanding these systems. In particular, it reveals the fundamental role that symplectic geometry plays in mechanics (something which is not at all obvious from the traditional Newtonian formulation), and in the case of systems exhibiting symmetry, leads to an elucidation of conservation and reduction laws which can be used to simplify the analysis of these systems. The contribution here is primarily one of exposition. Geometric mechanics was developed as an aid to understanding physics, and we have endeavored throughout to highlight the physical principles at work behind the mathematical formalism. In particular, we show quite explicitly the entire development of mechanics from first principles, beginning with Newton's laws of motion and culminating in the geometric reformulation of Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics. Self-contained presentations of this entire range of material do not appear to be common in either the physics or the mathematics literature, but we feel very strongly that this is essential in order to understand how the more abstract mathematical developments that follow actually relate to the real world. We have also attempted to make many of the proofs contained herein more explicit than they appear in the standard references, both as an aid in understanding and simply to make them easier to follow, and several of them are original where we feel that their presentation in the literature was unacceptably opaque (this occurs primarily in the presentation of the geometric formulation of Lagrangian mechanics and the appendix on symplectic geometry). Finally, we point out that the fields of geometric mechanics and symplectic geometry are vast, and one could not hope to get more than a fragmentary glimpse of them in a single work, which necessiates some parsimony in the presentation of material. The subject matter covered herein was chosen because it is of particular interest from an applied or engineering perspective in addition to its mathematical appeal. / text

We extend the concept of central configurations to the N-body problem in spaces of nonzero constant curvature. Based on the work of Florin Diacu on relative equilib- ria of the curved N-body problem and the work of Smale on general relative equilibria, we find a natural way to define the concept of central configurations with the effective potentials. We characterize the ordinary central configurations as constrained critical points of the cotangent potential, which helps us to establish the existence of ordi- nary central configurations for any given masses. After these fundamental results, we study central configurations on H2, ordinary central configurations in S3, and special central configurations in S3 in three separate chapters. For central configurations on H2, we generalize the theorem of Moulton on geodesic central configurations, the theorem of Shub on the compactness of central configurations, the theorem of Conley on the index of geodesic central configurations, and the theorem of Palmore on the lower bound for the number of central configurations. We show that all three-body central configurations that form equilateral triangles must have three equal masses. For ordinary central configurations in S3, we construct a class of S3 ordinary central configurations. We study the geodesic central configurations of two and three bodies. Three-body non-geodesic ordinary central configurations that form equilateral trian- gles must have three equal masses. We also put into the evidence some other classes of central configurations. For special central configurations, we show that for any N ≥ 3, there are masses that admit at least one special central configuration. We then consider the Dziobek special central configurations and obtain the central con- figuration equation in terms of mutual distances and volumes formed by the position vectors. We end the thesis with results concerning the stability of relative equilibria associated with 3-body special central configurations. We find that these relative equilibria are Lyapunov stable when confined to S1, and that they are linearly stable on S2 if and only if the angular momentum is bigger than a certain value determined by the configuration. / Graduate

This thesis proposes a general and unified methodological framework suitable for studying the locomotion of a wide range of robots, especially bio-inspired. The objective of this thesis is twofold. First, it contributes to the classification of locomotion robots by adopting the mathematical tools developed by the American school of geometric mechanics.Secondly, by taking advantage of the recursive nature of the Newton-Euler formulation, it proposes numerous efficient tools in the form of computational algorithms capable of solving the external direct dynamics and the internal inverse dynamics of any locomotion robot considered as a mobile multi-body system. These generic tools can help the engineers or researchers in the design, control and motion planning of manipulators as well as locomotion robots with a large number of internal degrees of freedom. The efficient algorithms are proposed for discrete and continuous robots. These methodological tools are applied to numerous illustrative examples taken from the bio-inspired robotics such as snake-like robots, caterpillars, and others like snake-board, etc.

We have fully classified the momentum polytopes of the SU(3) action on CP(2)xCP(2) and CP(2)xCP(2) xCP(2), both actions with weighted symplectic forms, and their corresponding transition momentum polytopes. For CP(2)xCP(2) the momentum polytopes are distinct line segments. The action on CP(2)xCP(2) xCP(2), has 9 different momentum polytopes. The vertices of the momentum polytopes of the SU(3) action on CP(2)xCP(2) xCP(2), fall into two categories: definite and indefinite vertices. The reduced space corresponding to momentum map image values at definite vertices is isomorphic to the 2-sphere. We show that these results can be applied to assess the dynamics by introducing and computing the space of allowed velocity vectors for the different configurations of two-vortex systems.

Cette thèse traite de la modélisation dynamique des systèmes non-holonomes intermittents et de son application à la bicyclette 3D de Whipple. Pour cela, nous nous sommes appuyés sur un ensemble d'outils en mécanique géométrique (réduction Lagrangienne et projection dans le noyau des contraintes cinématiques essentiellement). Dans un premier temps, nous avons traité le cas de la bicyclette persistante. En définissant l'espace des configurations du vélo comme un fibré principal de groupe structural SE(3), nous avons obtenu un modèle des points de contact et des contraintes exempt de toute non-linéarité associée à un paramétrage de type coordonnées généralisées. Cette formulation nous a permis d'obtenir le noyau des contraintes sous une forme symbolique sans singularité. Nous avons alors produit un modèle symbolique de la dynamique de la bicyclette persistante en utilisant la méthode de réduction par projection de sa dynamique libre dans le sous espace de ses vitesses admissibles. Cette approche étend le cadre général mis au point ces dernières années pour la locomotion bio-inspirée. Profitant de la structure de SE(3), un modèle de la bicyclette intermittente a été proposé dans le cadre d'une approche événementielle. L'adoption du modèle physique de l'impact plastique, nous a permis d'étendre la méthode de réduction par projection au cas intermittent. Nous avons alors comparé notre approche "réduite" à l'approche classiquement utilisée et avons montré qu'elles partageaient une interprétation géométrique commune. Ces outils ont finalement été appliqués à la simulation de la bicyclette intermittente afin d'illustrer la richesse de sa dynamique. / This thesis deals with the dynamic modelling of intermittent non-holonomic systems andits application to the Whipple 3D bicycle. To that end, we relied on a set of tools in geometric mechanics (mainly Lagrangian reduction and the projection in the kernel of the kinematic constraints). In the first instance, we have addressed the case of the bicycle subjected to persistent contacts. By defining the space of the bicycle configurations as a principal fibre bundle with SE(3) as structural group, we obtained a model of the contact points and of the constraints free of any non-linearities associated with a generalized coordinate type configuration. This formulation allowed us to obtain the kernel of the constraints in a symbolic form without singularity. We then produced a symbolic model of the dynamics ofthe bicycle subjected to persistent contacts using the projection reduction method of its free dynamics in the subspace of its permissible speeds. This approach extends the general framework developed in recent years for bio-inspired locomotion. Taking advantage of the structure of SE(3), a model of the intermittent bicycle was proposed as part of an event-driven approach. Moreover, the adoption ofthe physical model of plastic impact has allowed us to extend the projection reduction method to the intermittent case. We then compared our "reduced" approach to the conventional approach and showed that they shared a common geometric interpretation. These tools were finally applied to the simulation of the intermittent bicycle to illustrate its rich dynamics.