From averaged to simultaneous controllability

Abstract

We consider a linear finite dimensional control system depending on unknown parameters. We aim to design controls, independent of the parameters, to control the system in some optimal sense. We discuss the notions of averaged control, according to which one aims to control only the average of the states with respect to the unknown parameters, and the notion of simultaneous control in which the goal is to control the system for all values of these parameters. We show how these notions are connected through a penalization process. Roughly, averaged control is a relaxed version of the simultaneous control property, in which the differences of the states with respect to the various parameters are left free, while simultaneous control can be achieved by reinforcing the averaged control property by penalizing these differences. We show however that these two notions require of different rank conditions on the matrices determining the dynamics and the control. When the stronger conditions for simultaneous control are fulfilled, one can obtain the later as a limit, through this penalization process, out of the averaged control property.