Multibody Dynamic Modeling of Multilegged Robots

Underactuated multibody systems are intriguing mechatronic systems, as they posses fewer control inputs than degrees of freedom. Some examples are modern light-weight flexible robots and articulated manipulators with passive joints. This book investigates such underactuated multibody systems from an integrated perspective. This includes all major steps from the modeling of rigid and flexible multibody systems, through nonlinear control theory, to optimal system design.

The book under review presents a comprehensive treatment of all aspects of modeling and numerical analysis of multibody systems. It contains many illustrations and examples and is suitable as a textbook for one or two graduate courses in multibody dynamics.