Optimal static output feedback design through direct search

This paper investigates the performance of using a direct search method to design optimal Static Output Feedback (SOF) controllers for Linear Time Invariant (LTI) systems. Considering the old age of both SOF problems and direct search methods, surprisingly good performances will be obtained compared to a state-of-the-art method. The motivation is to emphasize the fact that direct search methods are too much neglected by the control community. These methods are very rich for practical purposes on a lot of complex problems unyielding to classical optimization techniques, like linear matrix inequalities, thanks to their ability to explore even non-smooth functions on non-convex feasible sets.