An Introduction to Hybrid Dynamical Systems

This book is about dynamical systems that are "hybrid" in the sense that they contain both continuous and discrete state variables. Recently there has been increased research interest in the study of the interaction between discrete and continuous dynamics. The present volume provides a first attempt in book form to bring together concepts and methods dealing with hybrid systems from various areas, and to look at these from a unified perspective. The authors have chosen a mode of exposition that is largely based on illustrative examples rather than on the abstract theorem-proof format because the systematic study of hybrid systems is still in its infancy. The examples are taken from many different application areas, ranging from power converters to communication protocols and from chaos to mathematical finance. Subjects covered include the following: definition of hybrid systems; description formats; existence and uniqueness of solutions; special subclasses (variable-structure systems, complementarity systems); reachability and verification; stability and stabilizability; control design methods. The book will be of interest to scientists from a wide range of disciplines including: computer science, control theory, dynamical system theory, systems modeling and simulation, and operations research.