In this work, an initial state iterative learning control (ILC) approach is proposed for final state control of motion systems. ILC is applied to learn the desired initial states in the presence of system uncertainties. Four cases are considered where the initial position or speed is a manipulated variable and the final displacement or speed is a controlled variable. Since the control task is specified spatially in states, a state transformation is introduced such that the final state control problems are formulated in the phase plane to facilitate spatial ILC design and analysis. An illustrative example is provided to verify the validity of the proposed ILC algorithms. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.