Document ESAIM: COCV, Vol. 13, N°4, pp. 657-668
DOI: 10.1051/cocv:2007034
On the mobility and efficiency of mechanical systems
Gershon WolanskyDepartment of mathematics, Haifa 32000, Israel; gershonw@math.technion.ac.il
(Received February 8, 2006. Published online July 20, 2007.)
Abstract
It is shown that self-locomotion is possible for a body in Euclidian space,
provided its dynamics corresponds to a non-quadratic Hamiltonian,
and that the body contains at least 3 particles. The efficiency
of the driver of such a system is defined. The existence of an
optimal (most efficient) driver is proved.
Mathematics Subject Classification. 37J50, 37K25, 70H33
Key words: Lagrangian mechanics, efficiency, self-locomotion
© EDP Sciences, SMAI 2007