On the number of invariant factors of partially prescribed matrices and control theory (Q1567540)

Estimations of the number of invariant factors of partially prescribed matrices are given for different partitions of these matrices. For two matrices \(A\) and \(B\) over an infinite field \(F\), \(i[A B]\) denotes the number of invariant factors of the polynomial matrix \([xI-A-B]\) different from 1; similarly \(i{A\brack C}\) denotes the same number for the matrix \({xI-A\brack -C}\). Six theorems characterize the number of these invariant factors for different partitions of the matrix \([AB]\) with some prescribed submatrices. For instance, Theorem 11 which summarizes these results, states that given \(E_{11}\in F^{p\times p'}\), \(E_{12}\in F^{p\times q'}\), \(E_{21} \in F^{q\times p'}\) with \(p+q=m\), \(p'+q'=m+u\), \(u\geq 0\), and \(\nu\in \{0,1, \dots,m\}\), there exists \(E_{22}\in F^{q\times q'}\) such that \(i[ \begin{smallmatrix} E_{11} & E_{12}\\ E_{21} & E_{22}\end{smallmatrix}]\leq \nu\) iff the following conditions are satisfied: a) \(\nu>0\) or \(u>0\), b) \(\max\{i [E_{11} E_{12}]\), \(i{E_{11}\brack E_{21}}-w\}\leq\nu\) where \(w=\min \{q',u\}\). Since a linear control system \((A,B)\in \mathbb{C}^{n\times n}\times \mathbb{C}^{n\times m}\) is completely controllable iff \(i[A B]=0\), it is emphasized that these results can be used in order to characterize the complete controllability of a system with an unknown submatrix of \([A B]\).