Strong Structural Controllability of Systems on Colored Graphs

This paper deals with structural controllability of leader-follower networks. The system matrix defining the network dynamics is a pattern matrix in which a priori given entries are equal to zero, while the remaining entries take nonzero values. The network is called strongly structurally controllable if for all choices of real values for the nonzero entries in the pattern matrix, the system is controllable in the classical sense. In this paper we introduce a more general notion of strong structural controllability which deals with the situation that given nonzero entries in the system's pattern matrix are constrained to take identical nonzero values. The constraint of identical nonzero entries can be caused by symmetry considerations or physical constraints on the network. The aim of this paper is to establish graph theoretic conditions for this more general property of strong structural controllability.Comment: 13 page

A Unifying Framework for Strong Structural Controllability

This paper deals with strong structural controllability of linear systems. In contrast to existing work, the structured systems studied in this paper have a so-called zero/nonzero/arbitrary structure, which means that some of the entries are equal to zero, some of the entries are arbitrary but nonzero, and the remaining entries are arbitrary (zero or nonzero). We formalize this in terms of pattern matrices whose entries are either fixed zero, arbitrary nonzero, or arbitrary. We establish necessary and sufficient algebraic conditions for strong structural controllability in terms of full rank tests of certain pattern matrices. We also give a necessary and sufficient graph theoretic condition for the full rank property of a given pattern matrix. This graph theoretic condition makes use of a new color change rule that is introduced in this paper. Based on these two results, we then establish a necessary and sufficient graph theoretic condition for strong structural controllability. Moreover, we relate our results to those that exists in the literature, and explain how our results generalize previous work.Comment: 11 pages, 6 Figure