Periodic Oscillations and Bifurcations in Cellular Nonlinear Networks

A spectral technique is proposed for investigating periodic oscillations and bifurcations in cellular nonlinear networks. The method consists of the following three fundamental steps: 1) an accurate estimation of the whole set of stable and unstable limit cycles is provided through the application of the describing function technique; 2) a detailed characterization of each limit cycle is obtained via the harmonic balance (HB) technique, by exploiting as input parameter the single harmonic approximation, provided by the describing function technique; 3) limit cycle stability and bifurcations are studied by computing the Floquet's multipliers and exploiting both a time-domain and an HB-based technique.