Decomposition and equivalence of general nonlinear dynamical control systems

Abstract Projection and equivalence concepts have been widely studied in the literature. In the present paper two nonlinear systems with the same number of inputs, but not the same number of state variables, are considered. Under mild assumptions, necessary and sufficient conditions are given for the existence of a submersion such that the higher dimensional system projects locally onto the other one. The solution to this problem has relevant applications, for instance in robotics. It includes as a special case the equivalence of nonlinear systems with no particular structure.