Discrete-time control of continuous systems with approximate decentralized fixed modes

In this paper, the discrete-time control of decentralized continuous-time systems, which have approximate decentralized fixed modes, is studied. It is shown that under certain conditions, discrete-time controllers can improve the overall performance of the decentralized control system, when a linear time-invariant continuous-time controller is ineffective. In order to obtain these conditions, a quantitative measure for different types of approximate fixed modes in a decentralized system is given. In this case, it is shown that discrete-time zero-order hold (ZOH) controllers, and in particular, that generalized sampled-data hold functions (GSHF), can significantly improve the overall performance of the resultant closed-loop system. The proposed sampled-data controller is, in fact, a linear time-varying controller for the continuous-time system

Pole Assignment With Improved Control Performance by Means of Periodic Feedback

This technical note is concerned with the pole placement of continuous-time linear time-invariant (LTI) systems by means of LQ suboptimal periodic feedback. It is well-known that there exist infinitely many generalized sampled-data hold functions (GSHF) for any controllable LTI system to place the modes of its discrete-time equivalent model at prescribed locations. Among all such GSHFs, this technical note aims to find the one which also minimizes a given LQ performance index. To this end, the GSHF being sought is written as the sum of a particular GSHF and a homogeneous one. The particular GSHF can be readily obtained using the conventional pole-placement techniques. The homogeneous GSHF, on the other hand, is expressed as a linear combination of a finite number of functions such as polynomials, sinusoidals, etc. The problem of finding the optimal coefficients of this linear combination is then formulated as a linear matrix inequality (LMI) optimization. The procedure is illustrated by a numerical example

Time Complexity of Decentralized Fixed-Mode Verification

Given an interconnected system, this note is concerned with the time complexity of verifying whether an unrepeated mode of the system is a decentralized fixed mode (DFM). It is shown that checking the decentralized fixedness of any distinct mode is tantamount to testing the strong connectivity of a digraph formed based on the system. It is subsequently proved that the time complexity of this decision problem using the proposed approach is the same as the complexity of matrix multiplication. This work concludes that the identification of distinct DFMs (by means of a deterministic algorithm, rather than a randomized one) is computationally very easy, although the existing algorithms for solving this problem would wrongly imply that it is cumbersome. This note provides not only a complexity analysis, but also an efficient algorithm for tackling the underlying problem

Complexity of checking the existence of a stabilizing decentralized controller

Given an interconnected system, this paper is concerned with the time complexity of verifying if any given unrepeated mode of the system is a decentralized fixed mode (DFM). It is shown that checking the decentralized fixedness of any distinct mode is tantamount to testing the strong connectivity of a digraph formed based on the system. It is subsequently proved that the time complexity of this decision problem using the proposed approach is the same as the complexity of matrix multiplication. This work concludes that the identification of distinct decentralized fixed modes (by means of a deterministic algorithm, rather than a randomized one) is computationally very easy, although the existing algorithms for solving this problem would wrongly imply that it is cumbersome. This paper provides not only a complexity analysis, but also an efficient algorithm for tackling the underlying problem