Positive Observers and Dynamic Output-Feedback Controllers for Interval Positive Linear Systems

This paper is concerned with the design of observers and dynamic output-feedback controllers for positive linear systems with interval uncertainties. The continuous-time case and the discrete-time case are both treated in a unified linear matrix inequality (LMI) framework. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of positive observers with general structure are established, and the desired observer matrices can be constructed easily through the solutions of LMIs. An optimization algorithm to the error dynamics is also given. Furthermore, the problem of positive stabilization by dynamic output-feedback controllers is investigated. It is revealed that an unstable positive system cannot be positively stabilized by a certain dynamic output-feedback controller without taking the positivity of the error signals into account. When the positivity of the error signals is considered, an LMI-based synthesis approach is provided to design the stabilizing controllers. Unlike other conditions which may require structural decomposition of positive matrices, all proposed conditions in this paper are expressed in terms of the system matrices, and can be verified easily by effective algorithms. Two illustrative examples are provided to show the effectiveness and applicability of the theoretical results.