Optimal gait selection for nonholonomic locomotion systems

This paper addresses the optimal control and selection of gaits in a class of nonholonomic locomotion systems that exhibit group symmetries. We study optimal gaits for the snakeboard, a representative example of this class of systems. We employ Lagrangian reduction techniques to simplify the optimal control problem and describe a general framework and an algorithm to obtai n numerical solutions to this problem. This work employs optimal control te chniques to study the optimality of gaits and issues involving gait transit ions. The general framework provided in this paper can easily be applied to other examples of biological and robotic locomotion.