Continuous Approximations of a Class of Piecewise Continuous Systems

In this paper, we provide a rigorous mathematical foundation for continuous approximations of a class of systems with piecewise continuous functions. By using techniques from the theory of differential inclusions, the underlying piecewise functions can be locally or globally approximated. The approximation results can be used to model piecewise continuous-time dynamical systems of integer or fractional-order. In this way, by overcoming the lack of numerical methods for differential equations of fractional-order with discontinuous right-hand side, unattainable procedures for systems modeled by this kind of equations, such as chaos control, synchronization, anticontrol and many others, can be easily implemented. Several examples are presented and three comparative applications are studied.