Compositional Construction of Abstractions for Infinite Networks of Discrete-Time Switched Systems

TL;DR

This paper presents a compositional method to construct continuous abstractions for infinite networks of discrete-time switched systems, enabling scalable controller design with quantifiable approximation errors.

Contribution

It introduces a scale-free, compositional framework using simulation functions and small-gain conditions for infinite networks, with practical LMI-based construction methods.

Findings

Effective abstraction of infinite networks demonstrated

LMI conditions enable efficient local abstraction construction

Application to AC microgrids validates approach

Abstract

In this paper, we develop a compositional scheme for the construction of continuous approximations for interconnections of infinitely many discrete-time switched systems. An approximation (also known as abstraction) is itself a continuous-space system, which can be used as a replacement of the original (also known as concrete) system in a controller design process. Having designed a controller for the abstract system, it is refined to a more detailed one for the concrete system. We use the notion of so-called simulation functions to quantify the mismatch between the original system and its approximation. In particular, each subsystem in the concrete network and its corresponding one in the abstract network are related through a notion of local simulation functions. We show that if the local simulation functions satisfy certain small-gain type conditions developed for a network containing infinitely many subsystems, then the aggregation of the individual simulation functions provides an overall simulation function quantifying the error between the overall abstraction network and the concrete one. In addition, we show that our methodology results in a scale-free compositional approach for any finite-but-arbitrarily large networks obtained from truncation of an infinite network. We provide a systematic approach to construct local abstractions and simulation functions for networks of linear switched systems. The required conditions are expressed in terms of linear matrix inequalities that can be efficiently computed. We illustrate the effectiveness of our approach through an application to AC islanded microgirds.