Polynomial controllers for linear systems (Q5931750)

In this interesting note, the authors provide several results about lowest possible degrees of controls depending in a polynomial way on time which send a given point in state space to another one when driving a single input linear time-invariant controllable system. When the eigenvalues of the drift are real (respectively distinct) there is a polynomial controller of degree \(n- 1\) (respectively \(n\)) where \(n\) is the dimension of the state space. In the first case, the control is given in a semi-explicit way and one uses a result of Pólya and Szegő about the zeros of certain functions which are combinations of polynomials and exponentials. A nongeneric situation is also examined and one relates the existence of such low degree controllers to the multiplicity of zeros of some entire functions. There are typographical mistakes and improper language when the authors write about the eigenvalues of a system (p. 84). This publication could be added to the ``surprisingly small literature'' on a fundamental problem of control theory (which is open in general), namely to find analytical or computational methods to devise controllers which send one point to another in state space when driving a given controllable system (not necessarily linear). Here one does not want to use optimal controllers which are expressed with words of infinite length and are thus expensive with respect to this criterion, but instead one wants to find answers with words as small as possible. Since the words are not known in general, one may infer that, in a certain sense, control theory is still in a prehistoric stage.