A sufficient condition for 2-contraction of a feedback interconnection

Abstract: Multistationarity - the existence of multiple equilibrium points - is a common phenomenon in dynamical systems from a variety of fields, including neuroscience, opinion dynamics, systems biology, and power systems. A recently proposed generalization of contraction theory, called $k$-contraction, is a promising approach for analyzing the asymptotic behaviour of multistationary systems. In particular, all bounded trajectories of a time-invariant 2-contracting system converge to an equilibrium point, but the system may have multiple equilibrium points where more than one is locally stable. An important challenge is to study $k$-contraction in large-scale interconnected systems. Inspired by a recent small-gain theorem for 2-contraction by Angeli et al., we derive a new sufficient condition for 2-contraction of a feedback interconnection of two nonlinear dynamical systems. Our condition is based on (i) deriving new formulas for the 2-multiplicative [2-additive] compound of block matrices using block Kronecker products [sums], (ii) a hierarchical approach for proving standard contraction, and (iii) a network small-gain theorem for Metzler matrices. We demonstrate our results by deriving a simple sufficient condition for 2-contraction in a network of FitzHugh-Nagumo neurons.