Abstract. An adaptive servomechanism is developed in the context of the problem of approximate or practical tracking (with prescribed asymptotic accuracy), by the system output, of any admissible reference signal (absolutely continuous and bounded with essentially bounded derivative) for every member of a class of controlled dynamical systems modelled by functional differential equations.Key words. adaptive control, nonlinear systems, functional differential equations, practical tracking, universal servomechanism AMS subject classifications. 93C23, 93C10, 93C40, 34K20PII. S03630129003797041. Introduction. A servomechanism problem is addressed in the context of a class of controlled dynamical systems having the interconnected structure shown in the dashed box in Figure 1. In particular, the aim is the development of an adaptive servomechanism which, for every system of the underlying class, ensures practical tracking (in the sense that prespecified asymptotic tracking accuracy, quantified by λ > 0, is assured), by the system output, of an arbitrary reference signal assumed to be locally absolutely continuous and bounded with essentially bounded derivative. (We denote by R the class of such functions and remark that bounded globally Lipschitz functions form an easily recognized subclass.) The system consists of the interconnection of two blocks: The dynamic block Σ 1 , which can be influenced directly by the system input/control u (an R M -valued function), is also driven by the output w from the dynamic block Σ 2 . Viewed abstractly, the block Σ 2 can be considered as a causal operator which maps the system output y (an R M -valued function) to w (an internal quantity, unavailable for feedback purposes).In essence, the underlying system class S consists of infinite-dimensional nonlinear M -input u, M -output y systems (p, f, g, T ), given by a controlled nonlinear functional differential equation of the form (1.1)ẏ (t) = f (p(t), (T y)(t))+g(p(t), (T y)(t), u(t)), y| [−h,0]