Synthesis of Nonlinear Multi-port Resistors: A PWL Approach

M. STORACE, P. JULIÁN, M. PARODI

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS I-FUNDAMENTAL THEORY AND APPLICATIONS

IEEE

Lugar: NY; Año: 2002 vol. 49 p. 1138 - 1149

1057-7122

This paper presents a method for the approximate synthesis of nonlinear multiport resistors. According to some fundamental circuit theory results, the general problem of synthesizing a multiport resistor with given constitutive equations corresponds to that of the synthesis of nonlinear controlled sources. Following this idea, in this paper, we focus on the design of nonlinear controlled sources using a piecewise-linear (PWL) approach. The constitutive equations are first approximated by resorting to canonical expressions for continuous PWL functions, and then implemented using a set of elementary building blocks. The proposed method is applied to the synthesis of the nonlinear resistive part of an equivalent circuit of the Hodgkin–Huxley nerve membrane model.