Matrosov's theorem using a family of auxiliary functions: an analysis tool to aid time-varying nonlinear control design

We present a new result on uniform attractivity of the origin for nonlinear time-varying systems. Our theorem generalizes Matrosov's theorem which extends, in a certain manner, Krasovskii-LaSalle invariance principle to the case of general nonlinear time-varying systems. We show the utility of our theorem by addressing a control problem of port interconnected driftless systems. The latter includes as special case, the control of chained-form nonholonomic systems which has been extensively studied in the literature.