Transfer equivalence and realization of nonlinear higher order input-output difference equations (Q5950250)

The authors consider a discrete-time single-input single-output nonlinear system described by the input-output difference equation \[ y(t+ n) = \phi ( y (t),\dots, y (t +n- 1), u(t),\dots, u (t+s)), \tag{1} \] where \( u \in \mathbb{R} \) is the scalar input variable, \( y \in Y \) is the scalar output variable, \(n\) and \(s\) are nonnegative integers, \(s < n\), and \( \phi \) is a real analytic function defined on \( Y^n \times {\mathbb{R}}^{s+1} \) . Two fundamental modelling problems in nonlinear discrete-time control systems are studied using the language of differential forms. For the first problem a new definition of equivalence is introduced which is based upon the notion of an irreducible differential form of the system and generalizes the notion of transfer equivalence well known for the linear case. The second problem is the realization problem. The input-output (i/o) difference equation is assumed to be in the irreducible form so that one can obtain an accessible and observable realization. Necessary and sufficient conditions are obtained for the existence of a (local) state-space realization of the irreducible i/o difference equation.