Total decoupling of general quadratic pencils, Part II: Structure preserving isospectral flows

Quadratic pencils, λ2M+λC+Kλ2M+λC+K, where M, C, and K   are n×nn×n real matrices with or without some additional properties such as symmetry, connectivity, bandedness, or positive definiteness, arise in many important applications. Recently an existence theory has been established, showing that almost all n-degree-of-freedom second-order systems can be reduced to n totally independent single-degree-of-freedom second-order subsystems by real-valued isospectral transformations. In contrast to the common knowledge that generally no three matrices can be diagonalized simultaneously by equivalence transformations, these isospectral transformations endeavor to maintain a special linearization form called the Lancaster structure and do break down M, C and K into diagonal matrices simultaneously. However, these transformations depend on the matrices in a rather complicated way and, hence, are difficult to construct directly. In this paper, a second part of a continuing study, a closed-loop control system that preserves both the Lancaster structure and the isospectrality is proposed as a means to achieve the diagonal reduction. Consequently, these transformations are acquired.