Permanent Rotations in Nonholonomic Mechanics. Omnirotational Ellipsoid

This paper is concerned with the study of permanent rotations of a rigid body rolling without slipping on a horizontal plane (i. e., the velocity of the point of contact of the ellipsoid with the plane is zero). By permanent rotations we will mean motions of a rigid body on a horizontal plane such that the angular velocity of the body remains constant and the point of contact does not change its position. A more detailed analysis is made of permanent rotations of an omnirotational ellipsoid whose characteristic feature is the possibility of permanent rotations about any point of its surface.