Optimal control of measurement subsystems

This paper considers an important class of problems known as measurement adaptive problems, in which control is available over not only the plant (i.e., the state equation contains a control variable) but also the measurement subsystem (i.e., the measurement equation contains a control variable). In the general situation the problem is shown to be a generalization of the combined optimization problem. In the special situation of linear systems, quadratic cost, and Gaussian random processes, it is shown that the optimization of plant control can be carried out independently of the measurement control optimization and, furthermore, that optimization of the measurement control can be done a priori. Two examples illustrating this latter situation are presented.