Piecewise Smooth Dynamical Systems: Analysis, Numerics and Applications

University of Bristol, 13th-16th September 2004

This was the second international workshop of the Bristol Centre for Applied Nonlinear Mathematics, funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Research Council (EPSRC), focused on "Piecewise Smooth Dynamical Systems: Analysis, Numerics and Applications".

The main aim of this meeting was to encourage and stimulate interaction and debate between researchers working on the analysis, control and applications of piecewise smooth dynamical systems. We especially wanted to foster links between experimentalists and theoreticians. Young researchers were particularly encouraged to participate in the meeting and present a poster. The meeting was highly informal in nature; experts in the field discussed current challenges and open problems with plenty of time for questions and discussions, following the highly successful model of the Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos meeting we organised in Bristol in 2001, and the first Bristol Centre for Applied Nonlinear Mathematics workshop, on Delay Equations and their Applications.

The meeting overlapped with the third general meeting of SICONOS (Simulation and Control of NonSmooth Systems), a Framework V EU Project.

Organisers

• Martin Homer
• Mario di Bernardo
• Alan Champneys
• John Hogan

Scientific Committee

• Karl Popp (Universität Hannover, Germany),
• Manfred Morari (Institute of Automatics, ETH Zürich, Switzerland),
• Erik Mosekilde (Technical University of Denmark),
• James Yorke (University of Maryland, USA).

Confirmed Invited Speakers

• Harry Dankowicz (Virginia Tech, USA),
• Arne Nordmark (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden),
• Yuri Kuznetsov (Utrecht University, Netherlands),
• Lawrence Virgin (Duke University, USA),
• Enric Fossas (Technical University of Catalonia, Spain),
• Mikael Johansson (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden),
• Chris Budd (University of Bath, UK),
• Marian Wiercigroch (University of Aberdeen, UK),
• Vladimir Babitsky (Loughborough University, UK),
• Zhanybai Zhusubalyiev (Kursk State Technical University, Russia),
• Fabio Dercole (Politecnico di Milano, Italy),
• Soumitro Banerjee (Indian Institute of Technology).
• Ian Hiskens (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA).
• Karl Johansson (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden).

The Bristol Centre for Applied Nonlinear Mathematics is a £1.1 million EPSRC critical mass research centre and one of the largest mathematics projects ever funded in the UK. It has five scientific themes which provide the mathematical technologies for dynamic substructuring of engineering systems.

The aims of this theme, piecewise smooth dynamical systems: analysis, numerics and appplications, are:

• To understand impacting systems of high-degree of freedom, determine the relationship with low-degree of freedom PWS models, and test the resulting theory with experiment.
• To propose and analyse strategies to control and simulation strategies for PWS systems.
• To complete a qualitative bifurcation theory for PWS systems, especially where grazing and sliding occurs, and devise algorithms for numerical analysis of such bifurcations.