Abstract
The robustness of a linear system in the view of parametric variations
requires a stability analysis of a family of polynomials. If the
parameters vary in a compact set A, then obtaining necessary and
sufficient conditions to determine stability on the family F A is one of
the most important tasks in the field of robust control. Two interesting
classes of families arise when A is a diamond or a
box of dimension n+1. These families will be denoted by F
D n and F B n , respectively. In this paper a study is presented to
contribute to the understanding of Hurwitz stability of families of
polynomials F A . As a result of this study and the use of classical
results found in the literature, it is shown the existence of an
extremal polynomial f ( α ∗ , x ) whose stability determines the
stability of the entire family F A . In this case f ( α ∗ , x ) comes
from minimizing determinants and sometimes f ( α ∗ , x ) coincides with
a Kharitonov’s polynomial. Thus another extremal property of
Kharitonov’s polynomials has been found. To illustrate the
versatility/generality of our approach, this is addressed to families
such as F D n and F B n , when n≤5. Furthermore, the study is
also used to obtain the maximum robustness of the parameters of a
polynomial. To exemplify the proposed results, first, a family F D n is
taken from the literature to compare and corroborate the effectiveness
and the advantage of our perspective. Followed by two examples where the
maximum robustness of the parameters of polynomials of degree 3 and 4
are obtained. Lastly, a family F B 5 is proposed whose extreme
polynomial is not necessarily a Kharitonov’s polynomial.