Minimal bases of matrix pencils and coprime matrix fraction descriptions (Q3148248)

There are four main approaches that have emerged so far for the construction of a coprime matrix fraction description (MFD) of a proper rational matrix: (a) a method defined by Rosenbrock, (b) the reduction to the block Hessenberg form (BHF) or the block Frobenious form (BFF), (c) the minimal design problem (MDP), and (d) a method defined by Wolovich. In this very interesting work, the authors propose two theoretical computational procedures for coprime MFDs, starting from a minimal state space description. The authors, based on the results presented in [the author, Linear Algebra Appl. 205-206, 831--868 (1994; Zbl 0804.15008)] for the evaluation of minimal bases of the kernels of matrix pencils, produce two simpler procedures for determining coprime MFDs. The first of the approaches is referred to as indirect and is based on the restriction pencil (sN-NA) [the author, Matrix pencil approach to geometric system theory, Proc. IEE, 126, 585--590 (1979)] and exploits the Toeplitz structure of the minimal bases of this pencil. The second method is referred to as direct and, although it is also based on the properties of minimal bases of the matrix pencil (\(sI\)-\(A\) \(B\)), it reduces computations to kernel problem evaluations of partial controllability matrices. Finally, the paper deals with numerical aspects relating to their implementation. Since the appearing matrices possess a special Toeplitz structure, the development of efficient numerical algorithms exploiting this structure is an issue deserving further investigation. Following also similar lines to the ones presented in this work, the nonproper case may also be investigated in a further work.