In this paper, we study the structural state and input observability of continuous-time switched linear time-invariant systems and unknown inputs. First, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for their structural state and input observability that can be efficiently verified in $O\left({\left(m(n+p)\right)}^2\right)$, where $n$ is the number of state variables, $p$ is the number of unknown inputs, and $m$ is the number of modes. Moreover, we address the minimum sensor placement problem for these systems by adopting a feed-forward analysis and by providing an algorithm with a computational complexity of $O\left({(m(n+p)+\alpha )}^{2.373}\right)$, where $\alpha$ is the number of target strongly connected components of the system’s digraph representation. Lastly, we apply our algorithm to a real-world example in power systems to illustrate our results.

在本文中，我们研究了连续时间切换线性时不变系统和未知输入的结构状态和输入可观测性。首先，我们为它们的结构状态和输入可观测性提供了充分必要条件，可以在$○\left({\left(米(n+p)\right)}^2\right)$， 在哪里$n$是状态变量的数量，$p$是未知输入的数量，并且$米$是模式的数量。此外，我们通过采用前馈分析并提供计算复杂度为$○\left({(米(n+p)+\alpha )}^{2.373}\right)$， 在哪里$\alpha$是系统的有向图表示的目标强连通分量的数量。最后，我们将我们的算法应用于电力系统中的一个真实示例来说明我们的结果。