Flat inputs: theory and applications

In this paper, we study the problem of constructing flat inputs for multi-output dynamical systems. The notion of flat inputs has been introduced by Waldherr and Zeitz in [30, 31] and can be seen as dual to that of flat outputs. In the single-output case, a flat input can be constructed if and only if the original dynamical system together with its output is observable. In the multi-output case, the observability is not necessary for the existence of flat inputs. The observable case has been treated in [31], where a system of linear algebraic equations has been proposed in order to determine the control vector fields associated to the flat inputs. The goal of this paper is to treat the unobservable case for multi-output dynamical systems. We start by discussing the case when the dynamical system together with the given output is observable and we present a generalization of the results of [31] by relating them with the notion of minimal differential weight. Then we give our main results. We consider the unobservable case for which locally, on an open and dense subset of $\mathbb R^n$ , we construct control vector fields $g_1 , \ldots, g_m$ such that the associated control system is flat. Finally, we explain how our results can be applied to private communication