Exact and Inexact Lifting Transformations of Nonlinear Dynamical Systems: Transfer Functions, Equivalence, and Complexity Reduction

Abstract

In this work, we deal with the problem of approximating and equivalently formulating generic nonlinear systems by means of specific classes thereof. Bilinear and quadratic-bilinear systems accomplish precisely this goal. Hence, by means of exact and inexact lifting transformations, we are able to reformulate the original nonlinear dynamics into a different, more simplified format. Additionally, we study the problem of complexity/model reduction of large-scale lifted models of nonlinear systems from data. The method under consideration is the Loewner framework, an established data-driven approach that requires samples of input–output mappings. The latter are known as generalized transfer functions, which are appropriately defined for both bilinear and quadratic-bilinear systems. We show connections between these mappings as well as between the matrices of reduced-order models. Finally, we illustrate the theoretical discussion with two numerical examples.