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In this paper, using our bifurcation-geometric approach, we study global dynamics and solve the problem of the maximum number and distribution of limit cycles (self-oscillating regimes corresponding to states of dynamical equilibrium) in a planar polynomial mechanical system of the Euler–Lagrange–Liйnard type. Such systems are also used to model electrical, ecological, biomedical and other systems, which greatly facilitates the study of the corresponding real processes and systems with complex internal dynamics. They are used, in particular, in mechanical systems with damping and stiffness. There are a number of examples of technical systems that are described using quadratic damping in second-order dynamical models. In robotics, for example, quadratic damping appears in direct-coupled control and in nonlinear devices, such as variable impedance (resistance) actuators. Variable impedance actuators are of particular interest to collaborative robotics. To study the character and location of singular points in the phase plane of the Euler–Lagrange–Liйnard polynomial system, we use our method the meaning of which is to obtain the simplest (well-known) system by vanishing some parameters (usually, field rotation parameters) of the original system and then to enter sequentially these parameters studying the dynamics of singular points in the phase plane. To study the singular points of the system, we use the classical Poincarй index theorems, as well as our original geometric approach based on the application of the Erugin twoisocline method which is especially effective in the study of infinite singularities. Using the obtained information on the singular points and applying canonical systems with field rotation parameters, as well as using the geometric properties of the spirals filling the internal and external regions of the limit cycles and applying our geometric approach to qualitative analysis, we study limit cycle bifurcations of the system under consideration.

In this article, a meshfree-spectral method for numerical investigation of dynamics of planar geophysical flows is proposed. We investigate inviscid incompressible fluid flows with the presence of planetary rotation. Mathematically this problem is described by the non-steady system of two partial differential equations in terms of stream and vorticity functions with different boundary conditions (closed flow region and periodic conditions). The proposed method is based on several assumptions. First of all, the vorticity field is given by its values on the set of particles. The function of vorticity distribution is approximated by piecewise cubic polynomials. Coefficients of polynomials are found by least squares method. The stream function is calculated by using the spectral global Bubnov –Galerkin method at each time step.

The dynamics of fluid particles is calculated by pseudo-symplectic Runge –Kutta method. A detailed version of the method for periodic boundary conditions is described in this article for the first time. The adequacy of numerical scheme was examined on test examples. The dynamics of the configuration of four identical circular vortex patches with constant vorticity located at the vertices of a square with a center at the pole is investigated by numerical experiments. The effect of planetary rotation and the radius of patches on the dynamics and formation of vortex structures is studied. It is shown that, depending on the direction of rotation, the Coriolis force can enhance or slow down the processes of interaction and mixing of the distributed vortices. At large radii the vortex structure does not stabilize.

In this paper, we discuss the procedure for finding nominal trajectories of the planar five-link bipedal robot with point contact. To this end we use a virtual constraints method that transforms robot’s dynamics to a lowdimensional zero manifold; we also use a nonlinear optimization algorithms to find virtual constraints parameters that minimize robot’s cost of transportation. We analyzed the effect of the degree of Bezier polynomials that approximate the virtual constraints and continuity of the torques on the cost of transportation. Based on numerical results we found that it is sufficient to consider polynomials with degrees between five and six, as further increase in the degree of polynomial results in increased computation time while it does not guarantee reduction of the cost of transportation. Moreover, it was shown that introduction of torque continuity constraints does not lead to significant increase of the objective function and makes the gait more implementable on a real robot.

We propose a two step procedure for finding minimum of the considered optimization problem with objective function in the form of cost of transportation and with high number of constraints. During the first step we solve a feasibility problem: remove cost function (set it to zero) and search for feasible solution in the parameter space. During the second step we introduce the objective function and use the solution found in the first step as initial guess. For the first step we put forward an algorithm for finding initial guess that considerably reduced optimization time of the first step (down to 3–4 seconds) compared to random initialization. Comparison of the objective function of the solutions found during the first and second steps showed that on average during the second step objective function was reduced twofold, even though overall computation time increased significantly.