Computing reachable sets of hybrid systems using a combination of zonotopes and polytopes

The computation of reachable sets for hybrid systems with linear continuous dynamics is addressed. Zonotopes are used for the representation of reachable sets, resulting in an algorithm with low computational complexity with respect to the dimension of the considered system. However, zonotopes have drawbacks when being intersected with transition guards which determine the discrete behavior of the hybrid system. For this reason, in the proposed approach, reachable sets are represented by polytopes within guard sets as an intermediate step in order to enclose them by zonotopes afterwards. Different methods for the conservative conversion from zonotopes to polytopes and vice versa are proposed and numerically evaluated.