Output deadbeat controllers with stability for discrete-time multivariable linear systems

This short paper Treats the problem of designing output deadbeat controllers having the property that the control input to the system converges to zero as time goes to infinity, for discrete-time multivariable linear systems. Two configurations of controllers are considered: one is of state feedback; the other is a dynamic controller using an observer. The existence of such controllers is examined, and the methods are presented for designing such controllers when they exist. The controller using a state feedback obtained in this paper is optimal in the sense that the controller settles the output in zero for any initial state in the minimum number of steps. On the other hand, the dynamic controller is not optimal in that sense, but it minimizes
t
, where
t
is defined as an integer such that the controller drives the output to zero in no more than
t
steps for any set of initial conditions of the system and the observer.