Reliable and Efficient Procedure for Steady-State Analysis of Nonautonomous and Autonomous Systems

The majority of contemporary design tools do not still contain steady-state algorithms, especially for the autonomous systems. This is mainly caused by insufficient accuracy of the algorithm for numerical integration, but also by unreliable steady-state algorithms themselves. Therefore, in the paper, a very stable and efficient procedure for the numerical integration of nonlinear differential-algebraic systems is defined first. Afterwards, two improved methods are defined for finding the steady state, which use this integration algorithm in their iteration loops. The first is based on the idea of extrapolation, and the second utilizes nonstandard time-domain sensitivity analysis. The two steady-state algorithms are compared by analyses of a rectifier and a C-class amplifier, and the extrapolation algorithm is primarily selected as a more reliable alternative. Finally, the method based on the extrapolation naturally cooperating with the algorithm for solving the differential-algebraic systems is thoroughly tested on various electronic circuits: Van der Pol and Colpitts oscillators, fragment of a large bipolar logical circuit, feedback and distributed microwave oscillators, and power amplifier. The results confirm that the extrapolation method is faster than a classical plain numerical integration, especially for larger circuits with complicated transients.