On the nonuniqueness of singular value functions and balanced nonlinear realizations

Abstract

The notion of balanced realizations for nonlinear state space model reduction problems was first introduced by Scherpen in 1993. Analogous to the linear case, the so-called singular value functions of a system describe the relative importance of each state component from an input–output point of view. In this paper it is shown that the procedure for nonlinear balancing has some interesting ambiguities that do not occur in the linear case. Specifically, distinct sets of singular value functions and balanced realizations are possible.