Output Feedback Invariants

The paper is concerned with the problem of determining a complete set of invariants for output feedback. Using tools from geometric invariant theory it is shown that there exists a quasi-projective variety whose points parameterize the output feedback orbits in a unique way. If the McMillan degree $n\geq mp$, the product of number of inputs and number of outputs, then it is shown that in the closure of every feedback orbit there is exactly one nondegenerate system.Comment: 15 page

Computing Dynamic Output Feedback Laws

The pole placement problem asks to find laws to feed the output of a plant governed by a linear system of differential equations back to the input of the plant so that the resulting closed-loop system has a desired set of eigenvalues. Converting this problem into a question of enumerative geometry, efficient numerical homotopy algorithms to solve this problem for general Multi-Input-Multi-Output (MIMO) systems have been proposed recently. While dynamic feedback laws offer a wider range of use, the realization of the output of the numerical homotopies as a machine to control the plant in the time domain has not been addressed before. In this paper we present symbolic-numeric algorithms to turn the solution to the question of enumerative geometry into a useful control feedback machine. We report on numerical experiments with our publicly available software and illustrate its application on various control problems from the literature.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures; the software described in this paper is publicly available via http://www.math.uic.edu/~jan/download.htm

Capacity of a POST Channel with and without Feedback

We consider finite state channels where the state of the channel is its previous output. We refer to these as POST (Previous Output is the STate) channels. We first focus on POST($\alpha$) channels. These channels have binary inputs and outputs, where the state determines if the channel behaves as a $Z$ or an $S$ channel, both with parameter $\alpha$. %with parameter $\alpha.$ We show that the non feedback capacity of the POST($\alpha$) channel equals its feedback capacity, despite the memory of the channel. The proof of this surprising result is based on showing that the induced output distribution, when maximizing the directed information in the presence of feedback, can also be achieved by an input distribution that does not utilize of the feedback. We show that this is a sufficient condition for the feedback capacity to equal the non feedback capacity for any finite state channel. We show that the result carries over from the POST($\alpha$) channel to a binary POST channel where the previous output determines whether the current channel will be binary with parameters $(a,b)$ or $(b,a)$. Finally, we show that, in general, feedback may increase the capacity of a POST channel

Noisy Channel-Output Feedback Capacity of the Linear Deterministic Interference Channel

In this paper, the capacity region of the two-user linear deterministic (LD) interference channel with noisy output feedback (IC-NOF) is fully characterized. This result allows the identification of several asymmetric scenarios in which imple- menting channel-output feedback in only one of the transmitter- receiver pairs is as beneficial as implementing it in both links, in terms of achievable individual rate and sum-rate improvements w.r.t. the case without feedback. In other scenarios, the use of channel-output feedback in any of the transmitter-receiver pairs benefits only one of the two pairs in terms of achievable individual rate improvements or simply, it turns out to be useless, i.e., the capacity regions with and without feedback turn out to be identical even in the full absence of noise in the feedback links.Comment: 5 pages, 9 figures, see proofs in V. Quintero, S. M. Perlaza, and J.-M. Gorce, "Noisy channel-output feedback capacity of the linear deterministic interference channel," INRIA, Tech. Rep. 456, Jan. 2015. This was submitted and accepted in IEEE ITW 201

Research on output feedback control

In designing fixed order compensators, an output feedback formulation has been adopted by suitably augmenting the system description to include the compensator states. However, the minimization of the performance index over the range of possible compensator descriptions was impeded due to the nonuniqueness of the compensator transfer function. A controller canonical form of the compensator was chosen to reduce the number of free parameters to its minimal number in the optimization. In the MIMO case, the controller form requires a prespecified set of ascending controllability indices. This constraint on the compensator structure is rather innocuous in relation to the increase in convergence rate of the optimization. Moreover, the controller form is easily relatable to a unique controller transfer function description. This structure of the compensator does not require penalizing the compensator states for a nonzero or coupled solution, a problem that occurs when following a standard output feedback synthesis formulation

Incremental generalized homogeneity, observer design and semiglobal stabilization

The notion of incremental generalized homogeneity is introduced, giving new results on semiglobal stabilization by output feedback and observer design and putting into a unifying framework the stabilization design for triangular (feedback/ feedforward) and homogeneous systems. A state feedback controller and an asymptotic state observer are designed separately by dominating the generalized homogeneity degree of the nonlinearities with the degree of the linear approximation of the system and an output feedback controller is obtained according to a certainty-equivalence principle

Algorithms for output feedback, multiple-model, and decentralized control problems

The optimal stochastic output feedback, multiple-model, and decentralized control problems with dynamic compensation are formulated and discussed. Algorithms for each problem are presented, and their relationship to a basic output feedback algorithm is discussed. An aircraft control design problem is posed as a combined decentralized, multiple-model, output feedback problem. A control design is obtained using the combined algorithm. An analysis of the design is presented