Stability of sampled-data piecewise affine systems: A time-delay approach

This paper addresses the stability analysis of sampled-data piecewise-affine (PWA) systems consisting of a continuous-time plant in feedback connection with a discrete-time emulation of a continuous-time state feedback controller. The sampled-data system is first considered as a continuous-time system with a variable time delay. Conditions under which the trajectories of the sampled-data closed-loop system will converge to an attracting invariant set are then presented. It is also shown that when the sampling period converges to zero, these conditions coincide with sufficient conditions for non-fragility of the stabilizing continuous-time PWA state feedback controller. The results are successfully applied to a helicopter example.