Non-Filippov dynamics arising from the smoothing of nonsmooth systems, and its robustness to noise

TL;DR

This paper investigates how smoothing nonsmooth dynamical systems can lead to non-Filippov behaviors and demonstrates that noise can restore Filippov-like dynamics, with implications for modeling friction and switch-like phenomena.

Contribution

It reveals that smoothing can produce dynamics inconsistent with Filippov solutions and shows noise can restore Filippov behavior, providing new insights into nonsmooth system modeling.

Findings

Smoothing can cause non-Filippov dynamics at discontinuities.

Noise can revert these dynamics to Filippov solutions.

Application to a dry-friction oscillator illustrates the effects.

Abstract

Switch-like behaviour in dynamical systems may be modelled by highly nonlinear functions, such as Hill functions or sigmoid functions, or alternatively by piecewise-smooth functions, such as step functions. Consistent modelling requires that piecewise-smooth and smooth dynamical systems have similar dynamics, but the conditions for such similarity are not well understood. Here we show that by smoothing out a piecewise-smooth system one may obtain dynamics that is inconsistent with the accepted wisdom --- so-called Filippov dynamics --- at a discontinuity, even in the piecewise-smooth limit. By subjecting the system to white noise, we show that these discrepancies can be understood in terms of potential wells that allow solutions to dwell at the discontinuity for long times. Moreover we show that spurious dynamics will revert to Filippov dynamics, with a small degree of stochasticity, when the noise magnitude is sufficiently large compared to the order of smoothing. We apply the results to a model of a dry-friction oscillator, where spurious dynamics (inconsistent with Filippov's convention or with Coulomb's model of friction) can account for different coefficients of static and kinetic friction, but under sufficient noise the system reverts to dynamics consistent with Filippov's convention (and with Coulomb-like friction).