The Lagrangian formulation of mechanics is the most convenient for determining a state transition equation for a collection of bodies. Once the kinetic and potential energies are determined, the remaining efforts are straightforward computation of derivatives and algebraic manipulation. Hamiltonian mechanics provides an alternative formulation that is closely related to the Lagrangian. Instead of expressing second-order differential constraints on an -dimensional C-space, it expresses first-order constraints on a -dimensional phase space. This idea should be familiar from Section 13.2. The new phase space considered here is an example of a symplectic manifold, which has many important properties, such as being orientable and having an even number of dimensions . The standard phase vector is defined as ; however, instead of , variables will be introduced and denoted as . Thus, a transformation exists between and . The variables are related to the configuration variables through a special function over the phase space called the Hamiltonian. Although the Hamiltonian formulation usually does not help in the determination of , it is covered here because its generalization to optimal control problems is quite powerful. This generalization is called Pontryagin's minimum principle and is covered in Section 15.2.3. In the context of mechanics, it provides a general expression of energy conservation laws, which aids in proving many theoretical results [39,397].
The relationship between and can be obtained by using the Legendre transformation [39,397]. Consider a real-valued function of two variables, . Its total differential  is
Assume that the dynamics do not depend on the particular time (the extension to time-varying dynamics is not difficult; see [39,397]). Let be the Lagrangian function defined (13.129). Let represent a generalized momentum vector (or adjoint variables), which serves the same purpose as in (13.185). Each is defined as
Considered as a function of and only, the total differential of is
Hamilton's equations are equivalent to the Euler-Lagrange equation. Extremals in both cases yield equivalent differential constraints. The difference is that the Lagrangian formulation uses and the Hamiltonian uses . The Hamiltonian results in first-order partial differential equations. It was assumed here that the dynamics are time-invariant and the motions occur in a conservative field. In this case, , which corresponds to conservation of total energy. In the time-varying case, the additional equation appears along with Hamilton's equations. As stated previously, Hamilton's equations are primarily of interest in establishing basic results in theoretical mechanics, as opposed to determining the motions of particular systems. For example, the Hamiltonian is used to establish Louisville's theorem, which states that phase flows preserve volume, implying that a Hamiltonian system cannot be asymptotically stable . Asymptotic stability is covered in Section 15.1.1. Pontryagin's minimum principle, an extension of Hamilton's equations to optimal control theory, is covered in 15.2.3.
Steven M LaValle 2012-04-20