A novel algorithm for computing the zeros of transfer functions by local minima

We present a novel technique for computing the zeros of rational transfer functions in partial fraction form, by finding the local minima of the magnitude of the determinant of a block matrix comprised of state-space sub-matrices and the Laplace variable s. In this paper, the technique is developed for systems with real poles and residues, and successfully applied to a 10th order numerical example. In a separate paper, we further develop the technique to systems with complex-conjugate pairs of poles and residues.