This paper addresses difference flatness for structured LTI discrete-time systems. Two forms of necessary and sufficient conditions for an output to be a structural flat output are given. First, a preliminary result algebraically defines a flat output in terms of invariant zeros regardless whether an LTI system is structured or not. Next, the conditions are expressed in terms of graphical conditions to define a structural flat output. Checking for the graphical conditions calls for algorithms that have polynomial-time complexity and that are commonly used for digraphs. The tractability of the conditions is illustrated on several examples.

In this paper we consider the problem of controlling a limited number of target nodes of a network. Equivalently, we can see this problem as controlling the target variables of a structured system, where the state variables of the system are associated to the nodes of the network. We deal with this problem from a different point of view as compared to most recent literature. Indeed, instead of considering controllability in the Kalman sense, that is, as the ability to drive the target states to a desired value, we consider the stronger requirement of driving the target variables as time functions. The latter notion is called functional target controllability. We think that restricting the controllability requirement to a limited set of important variables justifies using a more accurate notion of controllability for these variables. Remarkably, the notion of functional controllability allows formulating very simple graphical conditions for target controllability in the spirit of the structural approach to controllability. The functional approach enables us, moreover, to determine the smallest set of steering nodes that need to be actuated to ensure target controllability, where these steering nodes are constrained to belong to a given set. We show that such a smallest set can be found in polynomial time. We are also able to classify the possible actuated variables in terms of their importance with respect to the functional target controllability problem.

In this paper we study linear structured systems described by means of system matrices of which only the zero/non-zero structure is known and where the non-zeros are supposed to have independent values. The structure of linear structured systems can be represented by means of various types of graphs, like directed graphs or dynamic graphs. Here we use both type of graphs because they enable us to formulate and study certain controllability properties in a uniform and straightforward way. In this paper we extend the results of a previous paper containing a partial characterisation of the fixed part of the controllable subspace of linear structured systems. This fixed part is defined as the part of the controllable subspace that is independent of the values to the non-zeros, and therefore can be seen as the robust part of the controllable subspace. It turns out that, by considering the generic dimension of the controllable subspace, a characterisation of the fixed part can be obtained. The latter dimension equals the size of the minimal set of nodes in the dynamic graph that separates between the set of input nodes and the set of final state nodes. Computing the supremal of such minimal separating sets, we are capable of characterising the fixed part. In the paper we indicate how this supremal minimal separating set can be obtained insightfully and efficiently using the recursive nature of the dynamic graph. Our results are illustrated by some meaningful examples.

In this paper we study the controllability of interconnected networks that are described by means of structured linear systems with state-like and control variables. We assume that the systems operate in discrete time with the set of integers as the time axis. Further, we assume that the state-like variables for their evolution only depend on recent values of their neighbours with, however, unknown weight factors. These recent values may be one step back in time, but also more steps. This yields a description of the systems by means of matrices containing fixed zeros and free parameters, together with a time lag structure. Knowing the dependency and lag structure, we represent (the structure of the) systems by means of weighted directed graphs and study questions concerning their structural controllability, where the latter has to be defined in an appropriate way, i.e., in behavioural sense. We provide a necessary and sufficient characterization of structural controllability of our systems using a graph representation. The obtained characterization makes use of well-known and efficient algorithms from graph theory. We prove that in this context finding the minimal number of driver (controller) nodes is an NP-hard problem. The concepts and results of the paper are illustrated on academic examples and on a gene regulatory network.