Controllability results for the rolling of $2$-dim. against $3$-dim. Riemannian Manifolds

Abstract

In this article, we consider the rolling (or development) of two Riemannian connected manifolds $(M,g)$ and $(\hat{M},\hat{g})$ of dimensions $2$ and $3$ respectively, with the constraints of no-spinning and no-slipping. The present work is a continuation of \cite{MortadaKokkonenChitour}, which modelled the general setting of the rolling of two Riemannian connected manifolds with different dimensions as a driftless control affine system on a fibered space $Q$, with an emphasis on understanding the local structure of the rolling orbits, i.e., the reachable sets in $Q$. In this paper, the state space $Q$ has dimension eight and we show that the possible dimensions of non open rolling orbits belong to the set $\{2,5,6,7\}$. We describe the structures of orbits of dimension $2$, the possible local structures of rolling orbits of dimension $5$ and some of dimension $7$.