Bifurcation Analysis of a Microactuator Using a New Toolbox for Continuation of Hybrid System Trajectories

This paper presents the application of a newly developed computational toolbox, TC-HAT (TCˆ), for bifurcation analysis of systems in which continuous-in-time dynamics are interrupted by discrete-in-time events, here referred to as hybrid dynamical systems. In particular, new results pertaining to the dynamic behavior of an example hybrid dynamical system, an impact microactuator, are obtained using this software program. Here, periodic trajectories of the actuator with single or multiple impacts per period and associated saddle-node, perioddoubling, and grazing bifurcation curves are documented. The analysis confirms previous analytical results regarding the presence of co-dimension-two grazing bifurcation points from which saddle-node and period-doubling bifurcation curves emanate.Copyright © 2007 by ASME