BIFURCATION IN A PIECEWISE LINEAR CIRCUIT WITH SWITCHING BOUNDARIES

Abstract

By introducing time-dependent power source, a periodically excited piecewise linear circuit with double-scroll is established. In the absence of the excitation, all possible equilibrium points as well as the stability conditions are presented. Analyzing the corresponding characteristic equations with perturbation method, Hopf bifurcation conditions associated with the equilibria are derived, which can be demonstrated by the numerical simulations. The Hopf bifurcations of the two symmetric equilibrium points may cause two symmetric periodic orbits, which lead to single-scroll chaotic attractors via sequences of period-doubling bifurcations with the variation of the parameters. The two chaotic attractors expand to interact with each other to form an enlarged chaotic attractor with double-scroll. The behaviors on the switching boundaries are investigated by the generalized Jacobian matrix. When periodic excitation is applied to work on the circuit, three periodic orbits with the frequency of the excitation may exist, which can be called generalized equilibrium points (GEPs) with the same characteristic polynomials as those of the corresponding equilibrium points for the autonomous case. It is shown that when the trajectories do not pass across the switching boundaries, the solutions are the same as the GEPs. However, when the trajectories pass across the switching boundaries, complicated behaviors will take place. Three forms of chaotic attractors via different bifurcations can be observed and the influence of the switching boundaries on the phase portraits is discussed to explore the mechanism of the dynamical evolution.