A fast recursive method for sensitivity analysis of nonlinear networks

This paper presents a new recursive method for sensitivity calculations which is suitable for computer aided analysis and design of nonlinear DC networks. Rather than the adjoint networks, a direct method which is easily understood is used; the nonlinear diakoptics based on the generalized orthogonal network is applied to the direct method to yield an efficient method for the sensitivity calculation of nonlinear DC network. This new method can handle networks which are too large to be handled by the direct method or the adjoint networks approach alone. It is shown that the formulas for computing the sensitivities of all the response variables of a network with respect to the variation of a single parameter are easily derived, and the computations can be carried out very efficiently. However, the problem of computing the sensitivities of a single response variable with respect to the variations of several parameters can be derived using only matrix manipulations. Thus, the algorithms provide a new and efficient method for computer aided sensitivity analysis of nonlinear DC networks