Erratic Rectilinear Motion

 

Many real systems are erratic. For example, a car driving on a road. The car will start and stop many times during its travel. Erratic motion occurs whenever a motion parameter (i.e. s, v, a) is not continuous or the function has jumps or sharp bends as shown in the figure. When analyzing erratic motion,

• you need to analyze each continuous segment of motion separately.
• remember that the end condition of the previous segment is the initial condition for the current segment.