Topological structure of a special class of linear switched systems

Switched control systems deserve investigation for both theoretical and practical reasons since switching based control strategies can result in algorithms that offer significant performance improvements over traditional linear control. A fundamental requirement for the design of feedback control systems is the knowledge of structural properties of the switched system under consideration. Structural properties of a switched system are closely related to the generic counterparts such as controllability and observability. The knowledge on topological structure of switched systems consisting of continuous-time time-invariant linear subsystems can be used to clarify certain issues related to controllability as well as structural properties of such control systems. This work is mainly aimed at laying the groundwork of identifying the topological structure of the class of supervisory-based controllable switched systems consisting of continuous-time time-invariant linear subsystems.