Inferring Coupled Stuart-Landau Equations from Waveforms

Abstract: We present a data-driven framework to infer phase-amplitude equations of coupled limit-cycle oscillators directly from waveform measurements. Exploiting the universality of the Stuart-Landau normal form near a supercritical Hopf bifurcation, we reconstruct a near-identity transformation from two independent observables of an isolated oscillator and infer the intrinsic Stuart-Landau parameters. Using this reconstructed transformation, we then estimate linear coupling coefficients from paired measurements. The method accurately recovers parameters for coupled van der Pol oscillators, providing a quantitative benchmark. Applied to a high-dimensional hydrodynamic system of two coupled collapsible-channel oscillators, the inferred Stuart-Landau model captures bistability between in-phase and anti-phase synchronization and reveals that the anti-phase state is destabilized through a Neimark-Sacker bifurcation. Our approach enables quantitative prediction of synchronization transitions involving amplitude dynamics from experimentally accessible waveform data.