A gradient flow approach to decentralised output feedback optimal control

This paper visits the quadratic optimal control problem of decentralised control systems via static output feedback. A gradient flow approach is introduced as a tool to compute the optimal output feedback gain. Several nice properties are revealed concerning the convergence of the gain matrix along the trajectory of an ordinary differential equation obtained from the gradient of objective cost, i.e. the objective cost is decreasing along this trajectory. If the equilibrium points are isolated, the convergence can be guaranteed. A simulation example is given to illustrate the effectiveness of this approach.