A theory of state covariance assignment for discrete systems

In many regulation control problems it is desired to design the controller so that various system states have acceptable root mean squared values. This is a multiple objective problem. One way to satisfy these objectives is to assign a specified state covariance to the system. This paper introduces and solves the following problem: 1) characterize the entire set of state covariances which may be assigned to a linear discrete-time system by state feedback; and 2) find the set of all state feedback gains which will assign an admissible state covariance to the system. Extensions are also presented for state estimate feedback.