Interconnections and Initial Conditions of Linear Systems With First-Order Representations

This paper considers the initial value problem of an interconnection composed of linear systems described by the first-order differential/algebraic equations (DAEs). An initial condition of the system variable for which the DAE has a solution is called admissible. For the interconnected system, we formulate the invariance of the admissible initial condition sets (AICSs) of the sub-systems under interconnection. Namely, the AICSs are said to be invariant if they remain unchanged even when additional constraints due to interconnection are imposed on the system variables. It is shown that the feedback and regular feedback structures of the interconnection guarantee the invariance of the AICSs in the senses of impulsive-smooth distributions and smooth distributions, respectively. The results in this paper justify the use of a feedback controller in the control system design.