An observer for switched differential-algebraic equations based on geometric characterization of observability

Based on our previous work dealing with geometric characterization of observability for switched differential-algebraic equations (switched DAEs), we propose an observer design for switched DAEs that generates an asymptotically convergent state estimate. Without assuming the observability of individual modes, the central idea in constructing the observer is to filter out the maximal information from the output of each of the active subsystems and combine it with the previously extracted information to obtain a good estimate of the state after a certain time has passed. In general, observability only holds when impulses in the output are taken into account, hence our observer incorporates the knowledge of impulses in the output. This is a distinguishing feature of our observer design compared to observers for switched ordinary differential equations.