Geometrical conditions for the reachability and realizability of positive periodic discrete systems (Q1355230)

The authors study linear periodic systems of the form \[ \begin{aligned} x(k+1) &= A(k)x(k)+ B(k)u(k),\\ y(k) &= C(k)x(k)\text{ where, for some }n\in\mathbb{N},\;m\in\mathbb{N},\;p\in\mathbb{N}\text{ and }N\in\mathbb{Z}_+,\\ A(k) &= A(k+ N)\in\mathbb{R}^{n\times n},\\ B(k) &= B(k+N)\in\mathbb{R}^{n\times m},\\ C(k) &= C(k+N)\in\mathbb{R}^{p\times n},\;\forall k\in\mathbb{Z}_+.\end{aligned} \] In the first part of the paper they take \(p=n\) and \(C(k)\equiv I\) and they assume that all matrices \(A(k)\) and \(B(k)\) are nonnegative. For the resulting system, nonnegative reachability is discussed in some detail. In the second part of the paper they assume that \(A(k)\), \(B(k)\) and \(C(k)\) are such that the Markov parameters are nonnegative. Then they address the question whether there are nonnegative periodic matrices \(\overline A(k)\), \(\overline B(k)\), \(\overline C(k)\) realizing these Markov parameters. Basically they transform this realization problem into a problem concerning matrices leaving certain polyhedral cones invariant.