Stability results involving time-averaged Lyapunov function derivatives

The stability results which comprise the Direct Method of Lyapunov involve the existence of auxiliary functions (Lyapunov functions) endowed with certain definiteness properties. Although the Direct Method is very general and powerful, it has some limitations: there are dynamical systems with known stability properties for which there do not exist Lyapunov functions which satisfy the hypotheses of a Lyapunov stability theorem.In the present paper we identify a scalar switched dynamical system whose equilibrium (at the origin) has known stability properties (e.g., uniform asymptotic stability) and we prove that there does not exist a Lyapunov function which satisfies any one of the Lyapunov stability theorems (e.g., the Lyapunov theorem for uniform asymptotic stability). Using this example as motivation, we establish stability results which eliminated some of the limitations of the Direct Method alluded to. These results involve time-averaged Lyapunov function derivatives (TALFD’s). We show that these results are amenable to the analysis of the same dynamical systems for which the Direct Method fails. Furthermore, and more importantly, we prove that the stability results involving TALFD’s are less conservative than the results which comprise the Direct Method (which henceforth, we refer to as the classical Lyapunov stability results).While we confine our presentation to continuous finite-dimensional dynamical systems, the results presented herein can readily be extended to arbitrary continuous dynamical systems defined on metric spaces. Furthermore, with appropriate modifications, stability results involving TALFD’s can be generalized to discontinuous dynamical systems (DDS).