A sufficient LMI condition is proposed for checking robust stability of a p
olytope of polynomial matrices. It hinges upon two recent results: a new ap
proach to polynomial matrix stability analysis and a new robust stability c
ondition for convex polytopic uncertainty. Numerical experiments illustrate
that the condition narrows significantly the unavoidable gap between conse
rvative tractable quadratic stability results and exact NP-hard robust stab
ility results. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.