One-Parameter Bifurcations in Planar Filippov Systems

We give an overview of all codim 1 bifurcations in generic planar discontinuous piecewise smooth autonomous systems, here called Filippov systems. Bifurcations are defined using the classical approach of topological equivalence. This allows the development of a simple geometric criterion for classifying sliding bifurcations, i.e. bifurcations in which some sliding on the discontinuity boundary is critically involved. The full catalog of local and global bifurcations is given, together with explicit topological normal forms for the local ones. Moreover, for each bifurcation, a defining system is proposed that can be used to numerically compute the corresponding bifurcation curve with standard continuation techniques. A problem of exploitation of a predator–prey community is analyzed with the proposed methods.