On a differential geometric formulation of an optimal tracking problem (Q1283638)

The authors consider a fixed reference trajectory \(x_{r}\) satisfying \( \frac{d}{dt}x_{r}=A_{r}x_{r}\), where \(A_{r}\) is a diagonalizable constant matrix such that all its eigenvalues have positive real parts, and they study the trajectories of systems of type \(\frac{d}{dt}x=A( x-x_{r}) +A_{r}x_{r}\), with given initial state \(A\) being an arbitrary constant matrix that commutes with \(A_{r}\) and is stable. This last condition ensures that the trajectories of this type asymptotically track the reference trajectory. The state space is provided with a certain metric, such that the reference trajectory is a geodesic and the tracking trajectories are described using a certain set of geodesics with respect to this metric. This result is used to define ``optimal'' tracking trajectories.