On semi-global stabilization of minimum phase nonlinear systems without vector relative degrees

Recently, we developed a structural decomposition for multiple input multiple output nonlinear systems that are affine in control but otherwise general. This structural decomposition simplifies the conventional backstepping design and allows a new backstepping design procedure that is able to stabilize some systems on which the conventional backstepping is not applicable. In this paper we further exploit the properties of such a decomposition for the purpose of solving the semi-global stabilization problem for minimum phase nonlinear systems without vector relative degrees. By taking advantage of special structure of the decomposed system, we first apply the low gain design to the part of system that possesses a linear dynamics. The low gain design results in an augmented zero dynamics that is locally stable at the origin with a domain of attraction that can be made arbitrarily large by lowering the gain. With this augmented zero dynamics, backstepping design is then apply to achieve semi-global stabilization of the overall system.