Systematic design of adaptive controllers for feedback linearizable systems

A systematic procedure for the design of adaptive regulation and tracking schemes for a class of feedback linearizable nonlinear systems is developed. The coordinate-free geometric conditions, which characterize this class of systems, do not constrain the growth of the nonlinearities. Instead, they require that the nonlinear system be transformable into the so-called parametric-pure feedback form. When this form is strict, the proposed scheme guarantees global regulation and tracking properties, and substantially enlarges the class of nonlinear systems with unknown parameters for which global stabilization can be achieved. The main results use simple analytical tools, familiar to most control engineers