On the structure of kinematic systems with complete symmetry

This paper provides a new perspective on the structure of kinematic systems with complete symmetry. These systems naturally occur as models for mechanical systems with symmetry, for example flying or submersible robots. The configuration space of such systems is a homogeneous space of the symmetry Lie group, and it is well known that their kinematics can be lifted to equivariant kinematics on the symmetry group thus allowing global state observer constructions. We provide explicitly checkable sufficient differential-algebraic conditions on the symmetry that will lead to a lifted system in the form of standard left or right invariant kinematics on the symmetry group. Previously known conditions for one of these two cases required finding a velocity lift map with particular properties for which there was no general construction known.This work was partially supported by the Australian Research Council through the ARC Discovery Project DP160100783 “Sensing a complex world: Infinite dimensional observer theory for robots”