... First and foremost, Eric Martin and Ferhan Bulca,Ph.D. candidates under my cosupervision, are deeply thanked for theirinvaluable help and unlimited patience in the editing of the manuscript and ... systems are those in which inertia is neglected. Moreover, theelements constituting a mechanical system are rigid and deformable solids,compressible and incompressible fluids, and inviscid and ... genealogy of mechanical systems, including robotic ones, is given inFig. 1.1. In that figure, we have drawn a dashed line between mechanical systems and other systems, both man-made and natural, in order...