Small-signal stability analysis of neutral delay differential equations

This paper focuses on the small-signal stability analysis of systems modeled as Neutral Delay Differential Equations (NDDEs). These systems include delays in both the state variables and their first time derivatives. The proposed approach consists in descriptor model transformation that constructs an equivalent set of Delay Differential Algebraic Equations (DDAEs) of the original NDDE. The resulting DDAE is a non-index-1 Hessenberg form, whose characteristic equation consists of a series of infinite terms corresponding to infinitely many delays. Then, the effect on small-signal stability analysis is evaluated numerically through a Chebyshev discretization of the characteristic equations. Numerical appraisals focus on a variety of physical systems, including a population-growth model, a partial element equivalent circuit and a neutral delayed neural network.