While the design of optimal peak-to-peak controllers/observers for linear systems is known to be a difficult problem, this problem becomes interestingly much easier in the context of interval observers because of the positive nature of the error dynamics. Indeed, by exploiting several recent results on positive systems, we propose a novel and non-conservative approach formulated in terms of tractable finite-dimensional linear programs for designing a class of interval observers achieving minimum peak-to-peak gain. The optimal observer is notably shown to be uniform over the set of all possible mappings between observation errors and their weighted versions, which parallels a recent result on the stabilization of linear positive systems. Results pertaining on the interval observation of time-delay and discrete-time systems are then obtained as a direct application of the proposed method, emphasizing then its versatility. Several examples on the interval observation of linear and nonlinear systems are finally given for illustration.

10 pages, 4 figures