Contraction analysis of switched systems: the case of Caratheodory Systems and Networks

In this paper we extend to a generic class of piecewise smooth dynamical systems a fundamental tool for the analysis of convergence of smooth dynamical systems: contraction theory. We focus on switched systems satisfying Caratheodory conditions for the existence and unicity of a solution. After generalizing the classical definition of contraction to this class of dynamical systems, we give sufficient conditions for global exponential convergence of their trajectories. The theoretical results are then applied to solve a set of representative problems including proving global asymptotic stability of switched linear systems, giving conditions for incremental stability of piecewise smooth systems, and analyzing the convergence of networked switched linear systems.