Stabilization of uncertain nonholonomic systems using adaptive backstepping technique

This paper presents a control strategy for stabilization of a class of nonholonomic systems in chained form with nonlinear drift uncertainties. Stabilizing control laws are developed for these systems based on the adaptive backstepping technique. The proposed control strategy guarantees that all the system states globally converge to the origin, and the estimated parameters are guaranteed to be bounded simultaneously. A switching control strategy is employed to overcome the uncontrollability caused by the zero initial condition of the x₀-subsystem. Simulation results demonstrate the global convergence of the proposed controllers.