This paper deals with integrability issues of the Euler-Lagrange equations associated to a variational problem, where the energy function depends on acceleration and drag. Although the motivation came from applications to path planning of underwater robot manipulators, the approach is rather theoretical and the main difficulties result from the fact that the power needed to push an object through a fluid increases as the cube of its speed.
A Theorem is proved that gives intrinsic necessary and sufficient conditions for the integrability of a zero-deformable field of endomorphisms. The Theorem is proved by reducing to a special case in which the endomorphism field is nilpotent. Many arguments used in the derivation of similar results are simplified, principally by means of using quotient rather than subspace constructions.