On reachability of dynamic systems

Abstract

A large-scale dynamic system is considered as composed of a number of interconnected subsystems. Input and output reachability of the system is defined as a structural counterpart to controllability and observability. When the system is subject to structural perturbations due to on-off participation of the subsystems, conditions are provided for reachability to be connective, that is, to be invariant under the perturbations. The concept of input and output reachability leads naturally to formulations of input and output decentralized systems. It is shown that such systems are connectively reachable, which is an important structural property of 'large' and 'small' decentralized systems alike. Finally, a procedure is outlined to transform a centralized system into an input or output decentralized system with distinct inputs or outputs assigned to each subsystem separately.