The problem of evaluating the stability bounds of discrete-time singularly
perturbed systems is considered. A direct method using critical stability c
riteria has been developed to obtain the exact upper bound epsilon(0) of th
e singular perturbation parameter epsilon for which the overall system will
remain stable For All epsilon is an element of [0, epsilon(0)) The concept
of the block bialternate product is utilised to substantially reduce the o
rder of the matrices to be dealt with. It appears that the proposed method
is more efficient than that suggested by Li and Li (1992), which makes use
of the generalised Nyquist plot. It also completely removes the computation
al complexity associated with the quadratic dependence on the system matrix
A(epsilon) as encountered by Tesi and Vicino (1990).