Computing Polyhedral Approximations to Flow Pipes for Dynamic Systems

This paper presents a new approach to approximating the ows of continuous time dynamic systems from sets of initial conditions. The reachable set, or ow pipe, over a time interval 0; t f ] is approximated by the union of a sequence of convex polyhedra. Each poly-hedron contains a segment of the ow pipe. Properties of the approximation technique are discussed and illustrated with examples for linear and nonlinear systems, including the application of ow pipe approximation to veriication of a simple hybrid system.