Static output feedback stabilisation with H∞ performance for a class of plants

In this paper, the problem of static output feedback control of a linear system is considered. The existence of a static output feedback control law is given in terms of the solvability of two coupled Lyapunov inequalities which result in a non-linear optimisation problem. However, using state-coordinate and congruence transformations and by imposing a block-diagonal structure on the Lyapunov matrix, we will see that the determination of a static output feedback gain reduces, for a specific class of plants, to finding the solution of a system of linear matrix inequalities. The class of plants considered is those which are minimum phase with a full row rank Markov parameter. The method is extended to incorporate H∞ performance objectives. This results in a sub-optimal static H∞ control law found by non-iterative means. The simplicity of the method is demonstrated by a numerical example.