On the stabilizability radius of linear switched systems

Carl P. Dettmann, R. M. Jungers, P. Mason

Published 2020-02-24Version 1

We investigate the stabilizability of discrete-time linear switched systems, when the sole control action of the controller is the switching signal, and when the controller has access to the state of the system in real time. Despite their importance in many control settings, no algorithm is known that allows to decide the stabilizability of such systems, and very simple examples have been known for long, for which the stabilizability question is open. We provide new results allowing us to bound the so-called stabilizability radius, which characterizes the stabilizability property of discrete-time linear switched systems. These results allow us to improve significantly the computation of the stabilizability radius for the above-mentioned examples. As a by-product, we exhibit a discontinuity property for this problem, which brings theoretical understanding of its complexity.