A note on computing range space bases of rational matrices

Abstract: We discuss computational procedures based on descriptor state-space realizations to compute proper range space bases of rational matrices. The main computation is the orthogonal reduction of the system matrix pencil to a special Kronecker-like form, which allows to extract a full column rank factor, whose columns form a proper rational basis of the range space. The computation of several types of bases can be easily accommodated, such as minimum-degree bases, stable inner minimum-degree bases, etc. Several straightforward applications of the range space basis computation are discussed, such as, the computation of full rank factorizations, normalized coprime factorizations, pseudo-inverses, and inner-outer factorizations.