The Chicken-Egg Dilemma and the Robustness Issue in Nonlinear Output Regulation with a Look Towards Adaptation and Universal Approximators

In this paper we review the problem of output regulation for nonlinear systems. We discuss how the robustness properties and the simple structure of the linear regulator are linear artefacts which do not extend in more general nonlinear cases. We talk about the intertwining that is necessarily present between the internal model and the stabilising parts of a nonlinear regulator, in which the role of the exosystem mixes up with those of the residual plant's dynamics. We discuss a general guideline to deal with such structural challenges, by looking at adaptation and universal approximators as a promising way to provide systematic design procedures for approximate regulators in a general nonlinear setting.