Engineering example of the constraint forces in non-holonomic mechanical: forklift-truck robot motion. Part I

In the presented paper, a problem of nonholonomic constrained mechanical systems is treated. New methods in nonholonomic mechanics are applied to a problem of a Forklift-truck robot motion. This method of the geometrical theory of general nonholonomic constrained systems on fibered manifolds and their jet prolongations, based on so-called Chetaev-type constraint forces. The relevance of this theory for general types of nonholonomic constraints, not only linear or affine ones, was then verified on appropriate models. On the other hand, the equations of motion of a Forklift-truck robot are highly nonlinear and rolling without slipping condition can only be expressed by nonholonomic constraint equations. In this paper, the geometrical theory is applied to the above mentioned mechanical problem. The results of numerical solutions of constrained equations of motion, derived within the theory, are presented.