Variable structure methods for hybrid systems

The special issue of International Journal of Systems Science discusses the control, observation and identification for the classes of hybrid systems with strictly positive dwell time. Variable structure systems (VSS), sliding mode controllers and their recent version, higher order sliding modes, have attracted the attention of the international control community. Marco Tulio Angulo, Leonid Fridman and Arie Levant, present their article, titled 'Robust exact finite-time output based control using high-order sliding modes'. The application of the high-order sliding-mode differentiator for finite-time regulation of systems with matched disturbances is demonstrated. The article, 'Hybrid automata: an insight into the discrete abstraction of discontinuous systems', by Eva M. Navarro-López and Rebekah Carter, proposes the discontinuous dynamical systems (DDS) hybrid automaton and the extended DDS hybrid automaton to describe discontinuous systems with several surfaces.