English

Numerically Reliable Brunovsky Transformations

Optimization and Control 2026-05-19 v2 Systems and Control Systems and Control

Abstract

The Brunovsky canonical form provides sparse structural representations that are beneficial for computational optimal control, yet existing methods fail to compute it reliably. We propose a technique that produces Brunovsky transformations with substantially lower construction errors and improved conditioning. A controllable linear system is first reduced to the staircase form via an orthogonal similarity transformation. We then derive a simple linear parametrization of the transformations yielding the unique Brunovsky form. Numerical stability is further enhanced by applying a deadbeat gain before computing system matrix powers and by optimizing the linear parameters to minimize condition numbers.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2512.05910,
  title  = {Numerically Reliable Brunovsky Transformations},
  author = {Shaohui Yang and Colin N. Jones},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.05910},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Accepted by the IFAC World Congress 2026 as a regular paper. Compared with the official final version (six pages), this version has more remarks and examples

R2 v1 2026-07-01T08:11:58.524Z