The escaping disaster: a problem related to state-dependent delays (Q1881539)

The authors consider an object (a mass point) traveling along a line which should have a certain prescribed constant velocity \(v_0>0\) throughout its whole journey. Denote by \(x(t)\) its position on the line at time \(t\geq 0.\) The object regulates its velocity \(v\) in the following way: it is remote-controlled by a base located at \(x=0\) to which the object transfers its current velocity \(v(t)\) at time \(t\) with a certain transmission velocity \(c_1>0\). In order to attain the desired velocity \(v_0\), the object should accelerate if \(v<v_0\) and it should slow down for \(v>v_0\). This information is then transmitted back to the object with a transmission velocity \(c_2>0\) which may differ in general from \(c_1\). The corresponding signal running times (of an incoming signal at time \(t\)) take the implicit expression \[ \tau_{signal}=| x(t)| /c_2+| x(t-\tau_{signal})| /c_1 \] for the delay \(\tau_{signal}\) caused by the signal transmission. Taking into account a certain reaction time lag (normalized to \(1\)) at the base, the following state-dependent delay equation is derived \[ \ddot x(t)=f(\dot x(t-1-\tau_{signal})-v_0),\tag{1} \] where \(f\) is a nonlinear control function satisfying: (i) \(f\) is bounded, uniformly Lipschitz continuous on \(\mathbb{R}\), (ii) \(\nu f(\nu)<0, \nu\neq 0\). When \(\tau_{signal}=| x(t)| /c_2\), it is proved that the set of equilibria of (1) is unstable and a new kind of instability, called the escaping instability, evolves.