Stability and bifurcation in an electromechanical system with time delays

The effect of time delays occurring in a proportional-integral-derivative feedback controller on the linear stability of a simple electromechanical system is investigated by analyzing the characteristic transcendental equation. It is found that the trivial fixed point of the system can lose its stability through Hopf bifurcations when the time delay crosses certain critical values. Codimension two bifurcations, which result from non-resonant and resonant Hopf–Hopf bifurcation interactions, are also found to exist in the system.