A simplified optimal control method for homoclinic bifurcations (Q2499489)

It is well known that homoclinic bifurcation is an important source of instabilities in nonlinear dynamic systems. The subsequent occurrences of scattered chaotic dynamics and fractal basin boundaries are usually caused by the homoclinic intersection between the stable and unstable manifolds of the hilltop saddle in Poincaré map. So, homoclinic bifurcation is an unwanted dynamical behavior in most cases. Recently in several papers \textit{S. Lenci} and \textit{G. Rega} [see e.g. Chaos Solitons Fractals 21, No. 5, 1031--1046 (2004; Zbl 1060.93527)] have developed an optimal control method applied to various nonlinear oscillators, in which it was demonstrated how to choose the best shape of external periodic excitations in order to avoid transversal intersection of stable and unstable manifolds. In the present paper a simplified optimal control method is proposed for controlling or suppressing homoclinic bifurcations of a general nonlinear oscillator with one degree of freedom. The simplification is based on the addition of an adjustable parameter and on a superharmonic excitation in the force term. By solving an optimization problem for optimal amplitude coefficients of harmonic and superharmonic excitations to be used as the controlled parameters, the force term can be designed as the controller. By doing so, the control gain and small optimal amplitude coefficients can be obtained at lower cost. As the adjustable parameter decreases, a gain of some amplitude coefficient ratio is increased in highest degree, which means that the region where homoclinic intersections do not occur will be enlarged as much as possible, leading to the best possible control performance. Several numerical simulations of particular examples are given.