Characterization of robust root loci of polytopes of polynomials (Q2564863)

This paper is concerned with the root locus problem associated with the polytope \[ p(s,Q) \triangleq \bigl\{p (s,q) = \sum q_i p_i(s): q_i \geq 0,\;\sum q_i =1 \bigr\}, \] where the \(p_i(s)\), \(i=1,2, \dots, m\), are the vertices or generating polynomials of the polytope. The value set \(p(\widehat s,Q)\) for a fixed point \(\widehat s\) in the complex plane is a polygon whose vertices are some points of the \(p_i(s)\). The authors develop a simple efficient algorithm which tests if the value set of the polytope contains the origin of the complex plane. The above testing algorithm is combined with a pivoting procedure to construct the smallest set of regions in the complex plane which characterizes the robust root loci of a polytope. The paper concludes with two simple numerical examples.