Fractional-order Legendre functions for solving fractional-order differential equations

In this article, a general formulation for the fractional-order Legendre functions (FLFs) is constructed to obtain the solution of the fractional-order differential equations. Fractional calculus has been used to model physical and engineering processes that are found to be best described by fractional differential equations. Therefore, an efficient and reliable technique for the solution of them is too important. For the concept of fractional derivative we will adopt Caputo’s definition by using Riemann–Liouville fractional integral operator. Our main aim is to generalize the new orthogonal functions based on Legendre polynomials to the fractional calculus. Also a general formulation for FLFs fractional derivatives and product operational matrices is driven. These matrices together with the Tau method are then utilized to reduce the solution of this problem to the solution of a system of algebraic equations. The method is applied to solve linear and nonlinear fractional differential equations. Illustrative examples are included to demonstrate the validity and applicability of the presented technique.