Robust adaptive output‐feedback control for nonlinear systems with output unmodeled dynamics

Abstract In this paper, for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems in the presence of inverse dynamics, output unmodeled dynamics and nonlinear uncertainties, a robust adaptive output‐feedback controller design is proposed by combining small‐gain theorem, changing supply function techniques with backstepping methods. It is shown that all the signals of the closed‐loop system are uniformly bounded in biased case, and the output can be regulated to a small neighborhood of the origin in unbiased case. Furthermore, under some additional assumptions, an asymptotical result is obtained. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.