A Separation Principle for Underactuated Lossless Lagrangian Systems

We study under-actuated Lagrangian systems without dissipative forces, augmented by a chain of integrators. For such systems, we solve the open problem of global tracking control via position measurements only; strictly speaking, we establish uniform global asymptotic stability for the closed loop system. As a corollary, we obtain an original statement for flexible-joint robots, which closes a long-standing open problem of output feedback nonlinear control.