Luenberger observers for discrete-time nonlinear systems

Abstract: In this paper, we consider the problem of designing an asymptotic observer for a nonlin-ear dynamical system in discrete-time following Luenberger's original idea. This approach is a two-step design procedure. In a first step, the problem is to estimate a function of the state. The state estimation is obtained by inverting this mapping. Similarly to the continuous-time context, we show that the first step is always possible provided a linear and stable discrete-time system fed by the output is introduced. Based on a weak observ-ability assumption, it is shown that picking the dimension of the stable auxiliary system sufficiently large, the estimated function of the state is invertible. This approach is illustrated on linear systems with polynomial output. The link with the Luenberger observer obtained in the continuous-time case is also investigated.