Signal transmission in a chain of unidirectionally coupled self-sustained Van der Pol oscillators: effect of additional nonlinearities and noisy chain units

This work deals with the signal propagation in a model for chain of self-sustained electrical circuits with unidirectional coupling. We report on periodic and noisy inputs transmission along the chain based on theoretical and numerical investigations. The effects of additional nonlinearities and noisy fluctuations in the chain units are also highlighted in this paper. Different phenomena which appear in the chain include double amplification, chaos and fast filtering phenomenon under certain conditions. We also demonstrate that additional quartic and cubic nonlinearities have, respectively, the effect to increase or decrease the signal amplitude. The obtained results can be applicable in the design of a network of autonomous electrical generators to power micro-mechanical arms for micro-machines.