Adaptive robust control of MIMO nonlinear systems in semi-strict feedback forms (Q5947641)

The authors consider the MIMO nonlinear system \[ \dot x=f(x,\theta) + B(x,\theta)u +D(x)\Delta(x,\theta,u,t),\quad y=h(x), \] where \(y\in\mathbb R^m\) and \(u\in\mathbb R^m\) are the output and input vectors, respectively, \(x\in\mathbb R^n\) is the state vector, \(\theta\in\mathbb R^p\) is the vector of unknown parameters, \(h(x)\), \(f(x,\theta)\), \(B(x,\theta)\), and \(D(x)\) are known, and \(\Delta\in\mathbb R^{l_d}\) represents the vector of unknown nonlinear functions such as disturbances and modeling errors. The reasonable and practical assumptions on the linear parametrization of the state equations are made, which are satisfied by most applications. To deal with the complexity and difficulties caused by the coupling and the appearance of parametric uncertainties in the input matrices, an adaptive robust control (ARC) Lyapunov function -- an extension of the adaptive control Lyapunov function -- is used to formalize the viewpoint and the achievable results of the recently proposed ARC approach. Two backstepping designs via ARC Lyapunov functions are presented. The results are then used to construct specific ARC laws for MIMO nonlinear systems in the semi-strict-feedback forms. By using trajectory initialization, the resulting ARC law achieves a guaranteed output tracking transient performance and final tracking accuracy in general, while keeping all physical states and control inputs bounded. In addition, the control law achieves asymptotic output tracking in the presence of parametric uncertainties without using a discontinuous or infinite-gain feedback term.