Multibody Inverse Dynamics Using an Energy Preserving Direct Transcription Process

We propose a procedure for the solution of inverse multibody dynamic problems, here intended as optimal control problems for dynamical systems governed by differential-algebraic equations. The numerical solution is obtained by a direct transcription process based on an energy preserving scheme that ensures nonlinear unconditional stability. The resulting finite-dimensional problem is solved by sequential quadratic programming. We test the proposed methodology with the help of representative examples.