Worst-Case analysis of electrical and electronic equipment via affine arithmetic

This paper proposes to generate a smart tool that can inherently and effectively capture the results of parameter variations on the system responses of lumped and distributed electrical circuits. This methodology leverages the so-called affine arithmetic and represents parameter-dependent responses in terms of a multivariate polynomial. The affine representation is propagated from input parameters to circuit responses through a suitable redefinition of the basic operations, such as addition, multiplication or matrix inversion, that are involved in the circuit solution. The proposed framework is applied to the frequency-domain analysis of switching converters, and it turns out to be accurate and more efficient than traditional solutions based on Monte Carlo analysis.