Switching systems and entropy

Switching systems are non-autonomous dynamical systems obtained by switching between two or more autonomous dynamical systems as time goes on. They can be mainly found in control theory, physics, economy, biomathematics, chaotic cryptography and of course in the theory of dynamical systems, in both discrete and continuous time. Much of the recent interest in these systems is related to the emergence of new properties by the mechanism of switching, a phenomenon known in the literature as Parrondo's paradox. In this paper we consider a discrete-time switching system composed of two affine transformations and show that the switched dynamics has the same topological entropy as the switching sequence. The complexity of the switching sequence, as measured by the topological entropy, is fully transferred, for example, to the switched dynamics in this particular case. © 2013 © 2013 Taylor & Francis.