This paper is devoted to the development of adaptive control schemes for uncertain discrete-time systems, which guarantee robust global exponential convergence to the desired equilibrium point of the system. The proposed control scheme consists of a nominal feedback law, which achieves robust global exponential stability properties when the vector of the parameters is known, in conjunction with a nonlinear dead-beat observer. The proposed adaptive control scheme depends on certain parameter observability assumptions. The obtained results are applicable to highly nonlinear uncertain discrete-time systems with unknown constant parameters. The successful applicability of the obtained results to real control problems is demonstrated by the rigorous application of the proposed adaptive control scheme to uncertain freeway models. A provided example demonstrates the efficiency of the approach.