Distributed stabilisation of spatially invariant systems: positive polynomial approach

The paper gives a computationally feasible characterisation of spatially distributed controllers stabilising a linear spatially invariant system, that is, a system described by linear partial differential equations with coefficients independent on time and location. With one spatial and one temporal variable such a system can be modelled by a 2-D transfer function. Stabilising distributed feedback controllers are then parametrised as a solution to the Diophantine equation ax + by = c for a given stable bi-variate polynomial c. The paper is built on the relationship between stability of a 2-D polynomial and positiveness of a related polynomial matrix on the unit circle. Such matrices are usually bilinear in the coefficients of the original polynomials. For low-order discrete-time systems it is shown that a linearising factorisation of the polynomial Schur-Cohn matrix exists. For higher order plants and/or controllers such factorisation is not possible as the solution set is non-convex and one has to resort to some relaxation. For continuous-time systems, an analogue factorisation of the polynomial Hermite-Fujiwara matrix is not known. However, for low-order systems and/or controller, positivity conditions on the closed-loop polynomial coefficients can be invoked. Then the computational framework of linear matrix inequalities can be used to describe the stability regions in the parameter space using a convex constraint.