Padé Discretization for Linear Systems With Polyhedral Lyapunov Functions

This technical note has been motivated by the need to assess the preservation of polyhedral Lyapunov functions for stable continuous-time linear systems under numerical discretization of the transition matrix. This problem arises when discretizing linear systems in such a manner as to preserve a certain type of stability of the discrete time approximation. Our main contribution is to show that a continuous-time system and its Padé discretization (of any order and sampling) always share at least one common piecewise linear (polyhedral) Lyapunov function.