A new approach for stability analysis of time-dependent switched continuous-time linear systems

In this paper, a new approach for stability analysis of time-dependent switched linear systems is proposed. System equivalence is the main idea in this new approach, which derives a switched discrete linear parameter-varying system from the switched continuous-time linear switched system with interval dwell time, and the stability properties of the two corresponding systems are proved to be equivalent. Then, by applying a quadratic Lyapunov function approach for the equivalent switched discrete system, the stability of the switched continuous-time linear system can be established without checking any average dwell time condition. Finally the computation complexity is analyzed, and mode incidence matrix is introduced to reduce the computation cost.