Closed-loop control of the motion of a sphere rolling on a moving horizontal plane

A uniform sphere is rolling without slipping on a horizontal plane. The motion of the sphere is controlled via the control of the acceleration of the plane. At the time t=0, the sphere and the plane are stationary and the center of the sphere is located at a point A in the plane. Given a time interval [0, tf], the problem dealt with here is: Find a closed-loop strategy for the acceleration of the moving plane such that, at the time t=tf, the plane and the sphere will be nearly at rest and the center of the sphere will be in a given neighborhood of the origin. By introducing the concept of path controllability, a closed-loop strategy for the solution of the above-mentioned problem is proposed and its efficiency is demonstrated by solving numerically some examples.