Partial Observability and its Consistency for PDEs

In this paper, a quantitative measure of partial observability is defined for PDEs. The quantity is proved to be consistent if the PDE is approximated using well-posed approximation schemes. A first order approximation of an unobservability index using an empirical Gramian is introduced. Several examples are presented to illustrate the concept of partial observability, including Burgers' equation and a one-dimensional nonlinear shallow water equation.