Evaluation of expressions involving higher order derivations

The local geometric properties of a nonlinear control system defined by vector fields E(sub 1),..., E(sub M) are determined by the algebraic properties of the iterated Lie brackets of the E(sub j)'s. The problem of rewriting expressions is examined involving the E(sub j)'s in terms of the D(sub mu)'s in such a way as to handle effectively any cancellation occurring due to commuting of the D(sub mu)'s. A data structure is introduced which allows us to organize the computation to take advantage of the symmetries in the expression and reduce the operation count.