Analysis of the nonlinear Fitzhugh–Nagumo equation and its derivative based on the Rabotnov fractional exponential function

The Fitzhugh–Nagumo equation is an essential governing equation that explains the process of impulse transmission from the nerves. This work suggests a novel generalized arbitrary-order Fitzhugh–Nagumo equation that is based on the recently developed nonsingular fractional operator. The modified Fitzhugh–Nagumo equation has been generalized using fractional Yang–Abdel–Cattani operator to provide a more accurate representation of the equation with memory effects and non-local behavior. Further, we discussed some interesting and new properties of the proposed fractional operator and the Rabotnov exponential fractional kernel with a modified Sumudu integral transform. In order to solve the proposed nonlinear differential equation, the homotopy perturbation method coupled with the modified Sumudu integral transform technique is implemented to examine the result of a newly proposed Yang–Abdel–Cattani fractional Fitzhugh–Nagumo equation, which converges to the exact solution. The nonlinear terms of this equation are handled in terms of He's polynomials. The existence and uniqueness of the solution have been demonstrated using the Banach space fixed point theorem. The convergence and error analysis of the suggested technique are also discussed. The findings are expressed in terms of generalized Mittag-Leffler functions. The obtained results are plotted with the help of MATLAB R2016a mathematical software. The results in this work are more accurate, and it is proposed that the new Yang–Abdel–Cattani fractional derivative operator is an effective tool for finding the results of any other nonlinear problems arising in science and engineering. All three problems have been computed for different orders to confirm the significance of the fractionalizing concept in the proposed equation. The increase of the fractional order value ℘ to 1 confirms that our proposed time-fractional Fitzhugh–Nagumo equation in the Yang–Abdel–Cattani sense gets close to the analytic solution.