Modeling, analysis and control of robot–object nonsmooth underactuated Lagrangian systems: A tutorial overview and perspectives

So-called robot–object Lagrangian systems consist of a class of nonsmooth underactuated complementarity Lagrangian systems, with a specific structure: an “object” and a “robot”. Only the robot is actuated. The object dynamics can thus be controlled only through the action of the contact Lagrange multipliers, which represent the interaction forces between the robot and the object. Juggling, walking, running, hopping machines, robotic systems that manipulate objects, tapping, pushing systems, kinematic chains with joint clearance, crawling, climbing robots, some cable-driven manipulators, and some circuits with set-valued nonsmooth components, belong this class. This article aims at presenting their main features, then many application examples which belong to the robot–object class, then reviewing the main tools and control strategies which have been proposed in the Automatic Control and in the Robotics literature. Some comments and open issues conclude the article.