An integral equation approach to the periodic steady-state problem in nonlinear circuits

The problem of efficiently determining the periodic steady-state solution of a lightly damped nonlinear circuit is treated using an integral equation formulation, which is reduced to a vector nonlinear equation. A highly efficient way of generating the vector equations is also given. The resulting solution vector, which is a set of uniformly distributed time samples, is found by iteration. The vector equation formulation amounts to solving for the steady-state solution directly, as in frequency-domain techniques, but the solution vector does not have to be transformed repeatedly between the time and frequency domains. Several efficient iteration schemes are identified that further improve the speed of the method. Several examples are given, including a circuit exhibiting bifurcation, to demonstrate the robustness and general applicability of the method. Comparison of this method to other methods shows its superiority in solving this class of problems