ABSTRACTA dynamics inversion compensation scheme is designed for control of nonlinear discrete‐time systems with input backlash. This paper extends the dynamic inversion technique to discrete‐time systems by using a filtered prediction, and shows how to use a neural network (NN) for inverting the backlash nonlinearity in the feedforward path. The technique provides a general procedure for using NN to determine the dynamics preinverse of an invertible discrete time dynamical system. A discrete‐time tuning algorithm is given for the NN weights so that the backlash compensation scheme guarantees bounded tracking and backlash errors, and also bounded parameter estimates. A rigorous proof of stability and performance is given and a simulation example verifies performance. Unlike standard discrete‐time adaptive control techniques, no certainty equivalence (CE) or linear‐in‐the‐parameters (LIP) assumptions are needed.