Regular Linear Systems Governed by a Boundary Controlled Heat Equation

In this paper we consider a class of distributed parameter systems governed by the heat equation on bounded domains in Rn. We consider two types of boundary inputs (actuators) and two types of boundary outputs (sensors). Allowing for any possible pairing of these, we consider a total of four possible arrangements of our system. The first type of input (control) is through the Neumann boundary condition on a part of the boundary, together with a homogeneous Neumann boundary condition on the remaining part of the boundary. For this type of input, the input space is infinite-dimensional. The second type of input (with a finite-dimensional input space) is obtained by imposing constant normal derivatives on each element of a finite partition of the boundary. The first type of output (observation) is given by evaluation (trace) of the state of the system on a part of the boundary, so that the output space is infinite-dimensional. For the second type of output (with a finite-dimensional output space), we again consider a partition of the boundary of the spatial domain (which may be different from the one considered for the inputs) and each output channel contains the average of the values of the state of the plant on one element of this partition. Our main result is that any possible combination of the aforementioned inputs and outputs provides a regular linear system.