Generalized inverses for finite-horizon tracking

Control and communication issues are traditionally “decoupled” in discussions of decision and control problems, as this simplifies the analysis and generally works well for classical models. This fundamental assumption deserves re-examination as control applications spread into new areas where system complexity is significant. Such areas include the coordinated control of aerial vehicles (UAVs), MEMS devices, multi-joint manipulators and other settings where many systems must share the attention of a decision-maker. We consider a new class of sampled-data systems (termed “computer-controlled systems”) that offer the possibility of jointly optimizing between control and communication goals. Computer-controlled LTI systems can be viewed as linear operators between appropriate inner-product spaces. The generalized inverses of these operators are used to solve a class of finite-horizon tracking problems