Exponential stability of switched positive systems with unstable modes and distributed delays

Abstract This paper studies the exponential stability of switched positive system consisting of unstable subsystems with distributed time-varying delay. Unlike the existing results concerning delays, switching behaviors dominating the system can be either stabilizing or destabilizing. The distributed delay is supposed to be slowly varying and upper-bounded. To tackle the difficulties brought by both the switching behaviors with mixed effects and the distributed delay, a multiple discretized Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional is employed to derive sufficient conditions for the exponential stability of the system. Specifically, by adjusting the ratio of the stabilizing switching behaviors, the state divergence caused by unstable subsystems and destabilizing switching behaviors can be compensated. Simulation examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the results.