Parametric eigenstructure assignment in second-order descriptor linear systems

This note considers eigenstructure assignment in second-order descriptor linear systems via proportional plus derivative feedback. It is shown that the problem is closely related with a type of so-called second-order Sylvester matrix equations. Through establishing two general parametric solutions to this type of matrix equations, two complete parametric methods for the proposed eigenstructure assignment problem are presented. Both methods give simple complete parametric expressions for the feedback gains and the closed-loop eigenvector matrices. The first one mainly depends on a series of singular value decompositions, and is thus numerically simple and reliable. The second one utilizes the right factorization of the system, and allows the closed-loop eigenvalues to be set undetermined and sought via certain optimization procedures. An example shows the effect of the proposed approaches.