Structural Observability of Controlled Switching Linear Systems

In this paper, a new methodology for analysis of structural observability of controlled switching linear systems modelled by bond graphs is proposed. Causal manipulations on the bond graph model enable to determine graphically the observable subspace. A novel definition of observability is proposed. Finally, two sufficient conditions of observability are derived. The proposed method, based on a bond graph theoretic approach, assumes only the knowledge of the systems structure. These conditions can be implemented by classical bond graph theory algorithms based on finding particular paths and cycles in a bond graph.