This paper studies the minimal controllability problem(MCP), i.e., the problem of, given a linear time invariant system, finding the sparsest input vector tha t ensures system’s controllability. We show that the MCP is NP-complete, when the eigenvalues of the system dynamics matrix are simple. This is achieved by reducing the MCP to a set covering problem. In addition, the approximated solutions to the set covering problem lead to feasible (but sub-optimal) solutions to the MCP. Further, we analyze the relation of the MCP with its structural counterpart, the minimal structural controllability problem (MSCP) which is known to admit a polynomial complexity solution procedure. In fact, we conclude that the MCP is almost polynomial (P) in the sense the MCP for which we cannot show that is P (but NPcomplete) has zero Lesbegue measure. Finally, we provide an illustrative example where the solution to the MCP is found using the main results and reductions developed in this paper and posteriorly compared with the solution of the MSCP.
In this survey paper, we consider linear structured systems in state space form, where a linear system is structured when each entry of its matrices, like A,B,C and D, is either a fixed zero or a free parameter. The location of the fixed zeros in these matrices constitutes the structure of the system. Indeed a lot of man-made physical systems which admit a linear model are structured. A structured system is representative of a class of linear systems in the usual sense. It is of interest to investigate properties of structured systems which are true for almost any value of the free parameters, therefore also called generic properties. Interestingly, a lot of classical properties of linear systems can be studied in terms of genericity. Moreover, these generic properties can, in general, be checked by means of directed graphs that can be associated to a structured system in a natural way. We review here a number of results concerning generic properties of structured systems expressed in graph theoretic terms. By properties we mean here system-specific properties like controllability, the finite and infinite zero structure, and so on, as well as, solvability issues of certain classical control problems like disturbance rejection, input-output decoupling, and so on. In this paper, we do not try to be exhaustive but instead, by a selection of results, we would like to motivate the reader to appreciate what we consider as a wonderful modelling and analysis tool. We emphasize the fact that this modelling technique allows us to get a number of important results based on poor information on the system only. Moreover, the graph theoretic conditions are intuitive and are easy to check by hand for small systems and by means of well-known polynomially bounded combinatorial techniques for larger systems. This paper addresses problems on the structural design of large-scale control systems. An efficient and unified framework is proposed to select the minimum number of manipulated measured variables to achieve structural controllability observability of the system, and to select the minimum number of feedback interconnections between measured and manipulated variables such that the closed-loop system has no structural fixed modes. Global solutions are computed using polynomial complexity algorithms in the number of the state variables of the system. Finally, graph-theoretic characterizations are proposed, which allow a characterization of all possible solutions.