Introduction to the Special Issue on Hybrid Systems

Hybrid systems contain two distinct types of components, subsystems with continuous dynamics and subsystems with discrete dynamics that interact with each other. These systems typically contain variables or signals that take values from a continuous set and also variables that take values from a discrete, typically finite set. These continuous or discrete-valued variables depend on independent variables such as time, which may also be continuous or discrete; some of the variables may also be discrete event driven in an asynchronous manner.