Backstepping Design for Incremental Input-to-State Stabilization of Unknown Systems

Abstract: Incremental stability of dynamical systems ensures the convergence of trajectories from different initial conditions towards each other rather than a fixed trajectory or equilibrium point. Here, we introduce and characterize a novel class of incremental Lyapunov functions, an incremental stability notion known as Incremental Input-to-State practical Stability ({\delta}-ISpS). Using Gaussian Process, we learn the unknown dynamics of a class of control systems. We then present a backstepping control design scheme that provides state-feedback controllers that render the partially unknown control system {\delta}-ISpS. To show the effectiveness of the proposed controller, we implement it in two case studies.