A novel approach to feedback-linearizing control of nonminimum-phase nonlinear systems and its application to aircraft control

This paper presents a novel approach to the design of input-output(I/O) linearizing feedback laws for a class of nonminimum-phase nonlinear systems. Specifically speaking, we show that, under quite mild assumptions, a general nonlinear system can be converted into a singularly perturbed system by taking a magnitude and time scaling as well as input and state transformation. In particular, our novel transformation method can make the hidden dynamics play the role of fast subsystem in the resulting singularly perturbed system. Then, the well-known composite control strategy is applied to achieve internal stability as well as "almost linear" and decoupled I/O dynamic characteristics. We demonstrate its generality and practicality through an example study on PVTOL aircraft.