Existence and analytical approximations of limit cycles in a three-dimensional nonlinear autonomous feedback control system

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the existence and the analytical approximations of limit cycles in a three-dimensional nonlinear autonomous feedback control system. Based on three-dimensional Hopf bifurcation theorem, the existence of limit cycles is first proved. Then the homotopy analysis method (HAM) is applied to obtain the analytical approximations of the limit cycle and its frequency. In deriving the higher-order approximations, the authors utilized the idea of a perturbation procedure proposed for limit cycles’ approximation in van der Pol equation. By comparing with the numerical integration solutions, it is shown that the accuracy of the analytical results obtained in this paper is very high, even when the amplitude of the limit cycle is large.