Steady-state, self-oscillating and chaotic behavior of a PID controlled nonlinear servomechanism by using Bogdanov–Takens and Andronov–Poincaré–Hopf bifurcations

• Comparative analysis of Bogdanov–Takens and Andronov–Poincare–Hopf bifurcations.
• Tuning a PID controller using Bogdanov–Takens bifurcation and describing function.
• Tuning a PID controller by using the Andronov–Poincaré–Hopf bifurcation.
• Analysis of self-oscillating and chaotic behavior for the servomechanism.
• Use of chaotic behavior to improve the PID controller performance.

This paper analyzes a controlled servomechanism with feedback and a cubic nonlinearity by means of the Bogdanov–Takens and Andronov–Poincaré–Hopf bifurcations, from which steady-state, self-oscillating and chaotic behaviors will be investigated using the center manifold theorem. The system controller is formed by a Proportional plus Integral plus Derivative action (PID) that allows to stabilize and drive to a prescribed set point a body connected to the shaft of a DC motor. The Bogdanov–Takens bifurcation is analyzed through the second Lyapunov stability method and the harmonic-balance method, whereas the first Lyapunov value is used for the Andronov–Poincaré–Hopf bifurcation. On the basis of the results deduced from the bifurcation analysis, we show a procedure to select the parameters of the PID controller so that an arbitrary steady-state position of the servomechanism can be reached even in presence of noise. We also show how chaotic behavior can be obtained by applying a harmonical external torque to the device in self-oscillating regime. The advantage of achieving chaotic behavior is that it can be used so that the system reaches a set point inside a strange attractor with a small control effort. The analytical calculations have been verified through detailed numerical simulations.