A structural approach to the control of switching systems with an application to automotive engines

We consider switching dynamical systems, a particular class of hybrid systems, where transitions between different configurations are determined by external uncontrollable events. The control problem solved consists of maintaining the output of the systems in a given subset of the output space, independently of the transitions and of the presence of disturbances. A structural approach is presented, which allows to simplify considerably the procedure for the determination of the solution available in literature. The theory is applied to idle-speed regulation.