Observability of nonlinear differential algebraic systems (Q1366469)

The author considers feedback control systems of the form \[ G(x',x,u,t) =0,\;y= H(x,t), \] where \(x\in\mathbb{R}^n\) is the state variable, \(u\in\mathbb{R}^p\) the control, \(y\in \mathbb{R}^m\) the output, \(t\in\mathbb{R}\) the time, and \(x'\) the time derivative of \(x\). All functions are assumed to be sufficiently smooth. The control system is called smoothly observable if there exists a smooth function \(R\) depending on \(t,u,y\) and finitely many derivatives of \(u\) and \(y\) such that \(x(t)= R(t,u(t), y(t), \dots)\). The main result of the paper is a rank condition on matrices built from the derivatives of \(G\) and \(H\) which ensures (local) smooth observability via the implicit function theorem. The method is applied to the same system with the restriction \(y=0\), called zero dynamics, which models feedback stabilization. The verification of the rank condition is discussed in some examples.