Exponential stabilization of nonlinear driftless affine control systems
is addressed with the concern of achieving robustness with respect to
imperfect knowledge of the system's control vector fields.
In order to satisfy this robustness requirement, and inspired by
Bennani and Rouchon [1] where the same issue was first addressed, we consider a
control strategy which consists in applying
periodically updated open-loop controls that are continuous
with respect to state initial conditions. These controllers
are more precisely described as continuous time-periodic feedbacks
associated with a specific dynamic extension of the original system.
Sufficient conditions which, if they are satisfied by the control law,
ensure that the control is a robust exponential stabilizer for the
extended system are given. Explicit and simple control expressions which
satisfy these
conditions in the case of n-dimensional chained systems are proposed.
A constructive algorithm for the design of such control laws,
which applies to any (sufficiently regular) driftless control system,
is described.
