Fast and accurate simulation of coupled oscillators using nonlinear phase macromodels

Abstract — We present a generally applicable, macromodel-based method for predicting the behaviour of coupled oscillators much faster than possible using SPICE-level simulation. Our method is based on the use of nonlinear phase and amplitude macromodels that are extracted automatically from oscillators’ SPICE-level circuits. Using these macromodels in place of the original SPICE-level circuits enables large speedups, while cap-turing phase and amplitude dynamics, during simulation of synchronous and asynchronous phenomena in coupled oscillators. We demonstrate the technique on coupled Colpitts oscillators, obtaining speedups of 70 × without loss of accuracy. Greater speedups are expected when the size of coupled systems is larger and oscillators are more complex. Our technique is easily extended to simulate coupled oscillator networks comprising of large number of oscillators with different operating mechanisms. I