CANONICAL DECOMPOSITION OF NONLINEAR-SYSTEMS

The construction of a canonical, or normal, representation for non-lin ear systems, similar to the Morse canonical form in the linear case, i s obtained. The problem considered consists, in particular, of studyin g the existence of generalized transformations that achieve a desired block decoupling. Such transformations generalize the notions of state transformation, state feedback and output injection. A sufficient con dition is given in terms of a separability condition, which in turn is completely characterized by using differential forms and their proper ties. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.