Partial Floquet Transformation and Model Order Reduction of Linear Time-Periodic Systems

Abstract: Time-periodic dynamical systems occur commonly both in nature and as engineered systems. Large-scale linear time-periodic dynamical systems, for example, may arise through linearization of a nonlinear system about a given periodic solution (possibly as a consequence of a baseline periodic forcing) with subsequent spatial discretization. The potential need to simulate responses to a wide variety of input profiles (viewed as perturbations off a baseline periodic forcing) creates a potent incentive for effective model reduction strategies applicable to linear time-periodic (LTP) systems. Classical approaches that take into account the underlying time-periodic system structure often utilize the Floquet transform; however, computation of the Floquet transform is typically intractable for large order systems. In this paper, we develop the notion of a partial Floquet transformation connected to selected invariant subspaces of a time-varying differential operator associated with the LTP system. We modify and repurpose the Dominant Pole Algorithm of Rommes to identify effective invariant subspaces useful for model reduction. We discuss the construction of associated partial Floquet transformations and time-varying reduction bases with which to produce effective reduced-order LTP models and illustrate the process on a simple time-periodic system.