For most applications in the control area, the standard practice is to approximate a nonlinear mathematical model by a linear system. Since the feedback linearizable systems contain linear systems as a subclass, the procedure of approximating a nonlinear system by a feedback linearizable one is examined. Because many physical plants (e.g., aircraft at the NASA Ames Research Center) have mathematical models which are close to feedback linearizable systems, such approximations are certainly justified. Results and techniques are introduced for measuring the gap between the model and its truncated linearizable part. The topic of pure feedback systems is important to the study.
