Stability of interconnected systems: results without quasimonotonicity conditions

Addresses the stability analysis of a large class of nonlinear, continuous-time, finite dimensional dynamical systems which satisfy sector conditions. For such systems the authors define finite sets of extreme systems. The authors´ stability results which are phrased in terms of the qualitative properties of the extreme systems provide a systematic method for the stability analysis of an important class of problems. By means of specific examples the authors demonstrate that when applicable, the present results frequently offer advantages over existing results (e.g., over existing stability results of interconnected systems). The authors show that the present results constitute robustness stability results.