Dynamics of a Controlled Articulated $n$-trailer Wheeled Vehicle

This article is devoted to the study of the dynamics of movement of an articulated n-trailer wheeled vehicle with a controlled leading car. Each link of the vehicle can rotate relative to its point of fixation. It is shown that, in the case of a controlled leading car, only nonholonomic constraint equations are sufficient to describe the dynamics of the system, which in turn form a closed system of differential equations. For a detailed analysis of the dynamics of the system, the cases of movement of a wheeled vehicle consisting of three symmetric links are considered, and the leading link (leading car) moves both uniformly along a circle and with a modulo variable velocity along a certain curved trajectory. The angular velocity remains constant in both cases. In the first case, the system is integrable and analytical solutions are obtained. In the second case, when the linear velocity is a periodic function, the solutions of the problem are also periodic. In numerical experiments with a large number of trailers, similar dynamics are observed.