Effect of Initialization on a Class of Fractional Order Systems: Experimental Verification and Dependence on Nature of Past History and System Parameters

Abstract

The objectives of this work are (i) to verify experimentally the theoretical claim that neither Riemann–Liouville nor Caputo fractional derivative can be used to predict the time response of fractional order systems without proper correction for the system’s past history in terms of an initialization function and (ii) to study quantitatively how the error incurred due to ignoring initialization depends on the nature of the past history and the system parameters. The entire analysis is restricted to a special class of single input single output linear time invariant fractional order system which can be realized by a simple electrical circuit consisting of a resistance and a fractance in series. This work involves two different realizations of fractances or constant phase elements whose characteristic parameters are first determined based on their respective impedance frequency responses and then used to simulate the time responses of the circuit with the input same as the one used for experimentation using a numerical method for two cases: (i) taking past history into account and (ii) without taking past history into account. Thereafter, an integral square error criterion is presented and variation of the same is studied with respect to system parameters and nature of the history function to have a relative idea of how much partial past history in the absence of a complete one should suffice in practical applications.