Stability properties for continuous-time linear switched systems are at first determined by the (largest) Lyapunov exponent associated with the system, which is the analogous of the joint spectral radius for the discrete-time case. The purpose of this paper is to provide a characterization of marginally unstable systems, i.e., systems for which the Lyapunov exponent is equal to zero and there exists an unbounded trajectory, and to analyze the asymptotic behavior of their trajectories. Our main contribution consists in pointing out a resonance phenomenon associated with marginal instability. In the course of our study, we derive an upper bound of the state at time t, which is polynomial in t and whose degree is computed from the resonance structure of the system. We also derive analogous results for discrete-time linear switched systems.
IntroductionWe consider linear switched systems of the forṁwhere x ∈ R n and the switching law A(·) is an arbitrary measurable function taking values on a compact and convex set A of n × n matrices. In the following, a switched system of the form (1) will be often identified with the corresponding set of matrices A. This paper is concerned with stability issues for (1), where the stability properties are assumed to be uniform with respect to the switching law A(·). * Y. Chitour and P. Mason are with