Boosting the Model Discovery of Hybrid Dynamical Systems in an Informed Sparse Regression Approach

Abstract

Abstract We present an efficient data-driven sparse identification of dynamical systems. The work aims at reconstructing the different sets of governing equations and identify discontinuity surfaces in hybrid systems when the number of discontinuities is known a priori. In our approach, we first focus to identify the switches between the separate vector fields. Then, the dynamics among the manifolds are regressed by making use of the model discovery algorithm of Brunton et al. [1]. The reconstruction of the discontinuity surfaces comes as the outcome of a statistical analysis implemented via symbolic regression with small clusters (micro-clusters) and a rigid library of models. This allows to identify all the many possible switch points that are clustered to determine the actual discontinuity surfaces. The performances of the method are tested on two numerical examples, namely, a canonical spring–mass hopper and a free/impact electromagnetic energy harvester. These applications are characterized by the presence of a single and double discontinuity, respectively. The analyses demonstrate that in the supervised approach, i.e. where the number of discontinuities is preassigned, we are capable to determine accurately both discontinuities and set of governing equations. It is found a great improvement in time of computation reaching the maximum achievable reliability that outperform existing data-driven identification approaches for hybrid systems.