Sensitivity of Nonlinear One-Port Resistor Networks

This paper considers one-port resistor networks constructed from two-terminal resistors that are both passive and strictly locally passive. The results concern the global sensitivity of the terminal behavior of such networks to variations in the individual resistors. In contrast to the linear case, there are conditions under which replacing one element by a "larger" resistance will decrease the apparent resistance of the entire network at some operating point. Circuit examples are provided, and conditions under which the network resistance will and cannot decrease are derived.