Controlling chaos via backstepping design

In this Brief Report a method is presented to achieve both stabilization of chaotic motion to a steady state and tracking of any desired trajectory. The proposed approach is based on backstepping design and consists in a recursive procedure that interlaces the choice of a Lyapunov function with the design of feedback control. The main feature of this technique is that it gives the flexibility to build a control law by avoiding cancellations of useful nonlinearities, so that the goals of stabilization and tracking are achieved with a reduced control effort. A comparison with the differential geometric method clearly highlights the advantages of the proposed approach.