Dynamical Systems Seminar

An anti-lock braking system (ABS) is the primary motivation for this talk. The ABS controller switches the actions of charging and discharging valves in the hydraulic actuator of the brake cylinder based on the wheels' angular speed and acceleration. The controller is, therefore, modelled by discontinuous differential equations where two smooth vector fields are separated by a switching manifold \(S\). The goal of the controller is to maximize the tire-road friction force during braking (and, in particular, to prevent the wheel lock-up). Since the optimal slip \(L\) of the wheel is known rather approximately, the actual goal of the controller is to achieve such a switching strategy that makes the dynamics converging to a limit cycle surrounding the region of prospective values of \(L\).

In this talk I show that the required limit cycle can be obtained as a bifurcation from a point \(x_0\) of \(S\) when a suitable parameter \(D\) crosses 0. The point \(x_0\) turns out to be a fold-fold singularity (the vector fields on the two sides of S are tangent one another at \(x_0\)) and the parameter \(D\) measures the deviation of the switching manifold from a hyperplane. The proposed result is based on an extension of the classical fold bifurcation theory available for smooth maps. Construction of a suitable smooth map is a crucial step of the proof.