Vibro-Impact Perturbation Based Attractor Exchanger for Open-Loop Nonlinear Resonators

This work demonstrates for the first time a technique for swabbing the response of a nonlinear micromechanical resonator between two co-existing attractors using vibro-impact perturbation. Particularly, the nonlinear resonator can transfer between attractors with a single-frequency drive without the need for typical frequency sweeping by vibro-impacting the structure with another resonator. Named as an attractor exchanger in this work, the resonator that impacts the target nonlinear device generates perturbation to the system and by proper control of the driving signal phase and duration the exchanging between attractors can be realized with confidence. This technique avoids circuits required for frequency sweeping or closing loop with phase control and allows a new operation scheme of nonlinear resonators that might be useful for applications such as fast start-up oscillators and mechanical computation.