Control design for chained-form systems with bounded inputs

Discontinuous, time-invariant controllers have been recently proposed in the literature as an alternative method to stabilize nonholonomic systems. These control laws are not continuous at the origin and although they provide exponential rates of convergence, they may use significant amount of control effort, especially if the initial conditions are close to an equilibrium manifold. We seek to remedy this situation by constructing bounded controllers (with exponential convergence rates) for nonholonomic systems in chained form. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.