Symbolic computation in nonlinear control systems analysis: The example of bilinearization

This paper contributes to the development of symbolic computation for nonlinear control and design, by first reviewing some standard tools for analysis, and then focusing on the specific problem of bilinearization up to output injection. The symbolic computability of a bilinearizability test is proved, underlining the main advantages and some basic weaknesses of symbolic computation when applied to nonlinear control problems. An outcome of this research is a computational tool using Mathematica, which checks bilinearization of SISO nonlinear systems affine in the control.