Original manuscript: 2007/12/21

For control systems that evolve on Euclidean spaces, Jacobian linearization is a common technique in many control applications, analysis, and controller design methodologies. However, the standard linearization method along a non-trivial reference trajectory does not directly apply in a geometric theory where the state space is a differentiable manifold. Indeed, the standard constructions involving the Jacobian are dependent on a choice of coordinates.

The procedure of linearizing a control affine system along a non-trivial reference trajectory is studied from a differential geometric perspective. A coordinate-invariant setting for linearization is presented. With the linearization in hand, the controllability of the geometric linearization is characterized using an alternative version of the usual controllability test for time-varying linear systems. The various types of stability are defined using a metric on the fibers along the reference trajectory and Lyapunov's second method is recast for linear vector fields on tangent bundles. With the necessary background stated in a geometric framework, Kalman's theory of quadratic optimal control is understood from the perspective of the Maximum Principle. Finally, following Kalman, the resulting feedback from solving the infinite time optimal control problem is shown to uniformly asymptotically stabilize the linearization using Lyapunov's second method.

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