Observability analysis of piece-wise constant systems. I. Theory

For pt.II see ibid., vol.28, no.4, p.1068-75, Oct. 1992. A method for analyzing the observability of time-varying linear systems which can be modeled as piece-wise constant systems (PWCS) is presented. An observability matrix for such systems is developed for continuous and discrete time representations. A stripped observability matrix (SOM) is introduced which simplifies the analysis in cases where the use of this matrix is legitimate. The observability analysis is presented as a step-by-step procedure.<
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