Smoothing tautologies, hidden dynamics, and sigmoid asymptotics for piecewise smooth systems

Switches in real systems take many forms, such as impacts, electronic relays, mitosis, and the implementation of decisions or control strategies. To understand what is lost, and what can be retained, when we model a switch as an instantaneous event, requires a consideration of so-called hidden terms. These are asymptotically vanishing outside the switch, but can be encoded in the form of nonlinear switching terms. A general expression for the switch can be developed in the form of a series of sigmoid functions. We review the key steps in extending the Filippov's method of sliding modes to such systems. We show how even slight nonlinear effects can hugely alter the behaviour of an electronic control circuit, and lead to `hidden' attractors inside the switching surface.Comment: 12 page

Piecewise smooth systems near a co-dimension 2 discontinuity manifold: can one say what should happen?

We consider a piecewise smooth system in the neighborhood of a co-dimension 2 discontinuity manifold $\Sigma$. Within the class of Filippov solutions, if $\Sigma$ is attractive, one should expect solution trajectories to slide on $\Sigma$. It is well known, however, that the classical Filippov convexification methodology is ambiguous on $\Sigma$. The situation is further complicated by the possibility that, regardless of how sliding on $\Sigma$ is taking place, during sliding motion a trajectory encounters so-called generic first order exit points, where $\Sigma$ ceases to be attractive. In this work, we attempt to understand what behavior one should expect of a solution trajectory near $\Sigma$ when $\Sigma$ is attractive, what to expect when $\Sigma$ ceases to be attractive (at least, at generic exit points), and finally we also contrast and compare the behavior of some regularizations proposed in the literature. Through analysis and experiments we will confirm some known facts, and provide some important insight: (i) when $\Sigma$ is attractive, a solution trajectory indeed does remain near $\Sigma$, viz. sliding on $\Sigma$ is an appropriate idealization (of course, in general, one cannot predict which sliding vector field should be selected); (ii) when $\Sigma$ loses attractivity (at first order exit conditions), a typical solution trajectory leaves a neighborhood of $\Sigma$; (iii) there is no obvious way to regularize the system so that the regularized trajectory will remain near $\Sigma$ as long as $\Sigma$ is attractive, and so that it will be leaving (a neighborhood of) $\Sigma$ when $\Sigma$ looses attractivity. We reach the above conclusions by considering exclusively the given piecewise smooth system, without superimposing any assumption on what kind of dynamics near $\Sigma$ (or sliding motion on $\Sigma$) should have been taking place.Comment: 19 figure

Hidden bifurcations and attractors in nonsmooth dynamical system

We investigate the role of hidden terms at switching surfaces in piecewise smooth vector fields. Hidden terms are zero everywhere except at the switching surfaces, but appear when blowing up the switching surface into a switching layer. When discontinuous systems do surprising things, we can often make sense of them by extending our intuition for smooth system to the switching layer. We illustrate the principle here with a few attractors that are hidden inside the switching layer, being evident in the flow, despite not being directly evident in the vector field outside the switching surface. These can occur either at a single switch (where we will introduce hidden terms somewhat artificially to demonstrate the principle), or at the intersection of multiple switches (where hidden terms arise inescapably). A more subtle role of hidden terms is in bifurcations, and we revisit some simple cases from previous literature here, showing that they exhibit degeneracies inside the switching layer, and that the degeneracies can be broken using hidden terms. We illustrate the principle in systems with one or two switches. </jats:p

Hidden Degeneracies in Piecewise Smooth Dynamical Systems

When a flow suffers a discontinuity in its vector field at some switching surface, the flow can cross through or slide along the surface. Sliding along the switching surface can be understood as the flow along an invariant manifold inside a switching layer. It turns out that the usual method for finding sliding modes — the Filippov convex combination or Utkin equivalent control — results in a degeneracy in the switching layer whenever the flow is tangent to the switching surface from both sides. We derive the general result and analyze the simplest case here, where the flow curves parabolically on either side of the switching surface (the so-called fold–fold or two-fold singularities). The result is a set of zeros of the fast switching flow inside the layer, which is structurally unstable to perturbation by terms nonlinear in the switching parameter, terms such as [Formula: see text] [where the superscript does mean “squared”]. We provide structurally stable forms, and show that in this form the layer system is equivalent to a generic singularity of a two timescale system. Finally we show that the same degeneracy arises when a discontinuity is smoothed using standard regularization methods.</jats:p

Cyclic negative feedback systems: what is the chance of oscillation?

International audienceMany biological oscillators have a cyclic structure consisting of negative feedback loops. In this paper, we analyze the impact that the addition of a positive or a negative self-feedback loop has on the oscillatory behaviour of the three negative feedback oscillators proposed by Tsai et al (Science 231:126-129, 2008) where, in contast with numerous oscillator models, the interactions between elements occur via the modulation of the degradation rates. Through analytical and computational studies we show that an additional self-feedback affects the dynamical behaviour. In the high cooperativity limit, i.e. for large Hill coefficients, we derive exact analytical conditions for oscillations and show that the relative location between the dissociation constants of the Hill functions and the ratio of kinetic parameters determines the possibility of oscillatory activities. We compute analytically the probability of oscillations for the three models and show that the smallest domain of periodic behaviour is obtained for the negative-plus-negative feedback system whereas the additional positive self-feedback loop does not modify significantly the chance to oscillate. We numerically investigate to what extent the properties obtained in the sharp situation applied in the smooth case. Results suggest that a switch-like coupling behaviour, a time-scale separation and a repressilator-type architecture with an even number of elements facilitate the emergence of sustained oscillations in biological systems. An additional positive self-feedback loop produces robustness and adaptability whereas an additional negative self-feedback loop reduces the chance to oscillate