Sampling, infinite zeros and decoupling of linear systems

Ala~tmet--In order to understand more fully some of the trade-ot~ involved in using a sampled-data representation of a continuous-time system, the effects of time-sampling on the ability to achieve disturbance decoupling and input-output decoupling for linear systems are investigated. It is shown that disturbance decouplability is lost through sampling whereas row-by-row dynamic input-output decouplability is preserved in a very strong way. These results are obtained by analyzing the structure at infinity of a sampled-data system.