Synchronization of Chaotic Circuits

This research project investigates synchronization of two identical simple chaotic circuits. There has been interest in synchronized chaotic circuits as a possible means of signal encryption. We selected a chaotic differential equation from the paper “Simple chaotic systems and circuits,” by J.C. Sprott, published in the American Journal of Physics in 2000. Then, we designed and assembled a circuit that realizes the differential equation. Our implementation contained three 741 operational amplifiers, one AD734 chip, four 100kΩ resistors, one 10kΩ resistor, one variable resistor, and several power supplies. We qualitatively investigated the circuit using an oscilloscope and determined that it behaved chaotically. We then assembled another approximately identical chaotic circuit to investigate the synchronization of chaotic signals. We tried several different coupling schemes and observed phase space behaviors of the coupled circuits using an oscilloscope. Initial results for this system indicate that an extremely simple but not particularly useful coupling scheme permits synchronization of the two chaotic signals