Design of the Impulsive Goodwin’s Oscillator: A Case Study

The impulsive Goodwin’s oscillator (IGO) is a hybrid model composed of a third-order continuous linear part and a pulse-modulated feedback. This paper introduces a design problem of the IGO to admit a desired periodic solution. The dynamics of the continuous states represent the plant to be controlled, whereas the parameters of the impulsive feedback constitute design degrees of freedom. The design objective is to select the free parameters so that the IGO exhibits a stable 1-cycle with desired characteristics. The impulse-to-impulse map of the oscillator is demonstrated to always possess a positive fixed point that corresponds to the desired periodic solution; the closed-form expressions to evaluate this fixed point are provided. Necessary and sufficient conditions for orbital stability of the 1-cycle are presented in terms of the oscillator parameters and exhibit similarity to the problem of static output control. An IGO design procedure is proposed and validated by simulation. The nonlinear dynamics of the designed IGO are reviewed by means of bifurcation analysis. Applications of the design procedure to dosing problems in chemical industry and biomedicine are envisioned.