PROBLEM SET 1

1. Determine which of these functions are linear:

(a) f (x) = −ax + b where a > 0, b > 0 are constants.

Lecture Notes on Control Systems/D. Ghose/2012 14

(b) f (x) = 3x where x = {(1, 1, a)T : a ∈ R}

Note that the symbol ’T’ stands for matrix transpose. So (1, 1, a)T is a column
vector. Also, R is the set of real numbers.

(c) f (x) = cx where c > 0 and x = {(a, b, 0)T : a ∈ R, b ∈ R} {(a, 0, b)T : a ∈

R, b ∈ R} {(0, a, b)T : a ∈ R, b ∈ R}

2. Determine which of the following systems, represented by ordinary differential

equations, are linear:
2
(a) 3 ddt2y + dy
dt
+ 5y = 9 du
dt
+u
3
(b) −7 ddt3y + 3 dy
dt
+ 2y = 5 du
dt
+ 7u
2
(c) 8 ddt2y + 2 dy
dt
− 3y = 3 du
dt
+u+3
2
(d) 8 ddt2y + 2t dy
dt
= 3 du
dt
+ 4u
2
(e) 8y ddt2y + 2 dy
dt
+ y = 3 du
dt
+u
(f) 7 dy
dt
+ 3y = 9

3. Consider a system which takes as its input any piecewise continuous signal and
produces an output at time t as the algebraic sum of the magnitude of the discon-
tinuous jumps the input signal has undergone till time t. Is this system linear?
Note that a piecewise continuous signal is one which has only a finite number of
discontinuities in any given finite time interval and has finite magnitude. For
example, a step signal is piecewise continuous. So is a signal with multiple but
finite number of steps. So is a sinusoidal signal, and so on. In fact, almost any
signal that you can plot on a sheet of paper has this property.

8.5 Causal System or Causality

A causal system is one in which the output at time t depends only on the input signal
up to time t, and not on the input after time t. This is intuitively obvious but needs
to be stated, since mathematical models can be quite tricky, especially when you are
integrating time dependent functions to obtain responses.