Continuous approximations of a class of piece-wise continuous systems

Abstract: In this paper we provide a rigorous mathematical foundation for continuous approximations of a class of systems with piece-wise continuous functions. By using techniques from the theory of differential inclusions, the underlying piece-wise functions can be locally or globally approximated. The approximation results can be used to model piece-wise continuous-time dynamical systems of integer or fractional-order. In this way, by overcoming the lack of numerical methods for diffrential 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.