ISS implies iISS even for switched and time-varying systems (if you are careful enough)

Abstract

For time-invariant systems, the property of input-to-state stability (ISS) is known to be strictly stronger than integral-ISS (iISS). Known proofs of the fact that ISS implies iISS employ Lyapunov characterizations of both properties. For time-varying and switched systems, such Lyapunov characterizations may not exist, and hence establishing the exact relationship between ISS and iISS remained an open problem, until now. In this paper, we solve this problem by providing a direct proof, i.e. without requiring Lyapunov characterizations, of the fact that ISS implies iISS, in a very general time-varying and switched-system context. In addition, we show how to construct suitable iISS gains based on the comparison functions that characterize the ISS property, and on bounds on the function f defining the system dynamics. When particularized to time-invariant systems, our assumptions are even weaker than existing ones. Another contribution is to show that for time-varying systems, local Lipschitz continuity of f in all variables is not sufficient to guarantee that ISS implies iISS. We illustrate application of our results on an example that does not admit an iISS-Lyapunov function.