On the cycle time of non-autonomous min-max systems

The cycle time is an important performance metric associated with a min-max system. In this paper we study the cycle time of non-autonomous min-max systems. Based on the duality theorem, a general cycle time formula is derived, then we apply this formula to some special classes of min-max systems and obtain some results, which include a short proof of Olsder's theorem on the eigenvalue of separated min-max systems, a cycle time formula for min-max systems with triangular structure driven by uniform input, and a cycle time clipper for wide-sense bipartite systems.