Chapter 1 Chaos and Communications

Traditionally, signals (encompassing desired signals as well as interfering

signals) have been partitioned into two broadly defined classes, i.e., stochastic
and deterministic. Stochastic signals are compositions of random waveforms
with each component being defined by an underlying probability distribution,
whereas deterministic signals are resulted from deterministic dynamical
systems which can produce a number of different steady state behaviors
including DC, periodic, and chaotic solutions. Deterministic signals may be
described mathematically by differential or difference equations, depending
on whether they evolve in continuous or discrete-time.
DC is a nonoscillatory state. Periodic behavior is the simplest type of
steady state oscillatory motion. Sinusoidal signals, which are universally
used as carriers in analog and digital communication systems, are periodic
solutions of continuous-time deterministic dynamical systems.
Deterministic dynamical systems also admit a class of nonperiodic signals,
which are characterized by a continuous "noiselike" broad power spectrum.
This is called chaos.
Historically, at least three achievements were fundamental to the acceptance
of communication using chaos as a field worthy of attention and exploitation.
The first was the implementation and characterization of several electronic
circuits exhibiting chaotic behavior in early 1980's. This brought chaotic
systems from mathematical abstraction into application in electronic
engineering.
The second historical event in the path leading to exploitation for chaos-
based communication was the observation make by Pecora and Carroll in
1990 that two chaotic systems can synchronize under suitable coupling or
driving conditions. This suggested that chaotic signals could be used for
1.1 Historical Account

communication, where their noise like broadband nature could Improve

disturbance rejection as well as security.
A third, and fundamental, step was the awareness of the nonlinear (chaos)
community that chaotic systems enjoy a mixed deterministic / stochastic
nature [1 - 4]. This had been known to mathematicians since at least the
early 1970's, and advanced methods from that theory have been recently
incorporated in the tools of chaos-based communication engineering. These
tools were also of paramount importance in developing the quantitative
models needed to design chaotic systems that comply with the usual
engineering specifications.
The aim of this chapter is to give a brief review of the background theory
for chaos-based communications. Based on several dynamical invariants, we
will quantitatively describe the chaotic systems, and summarize the
fundamental properties of chaos that make it useful in serving as a spread-
spectrum carrier for communication applications. Furthermore, chaotic
synchronization makes it possible for chaos-based communication using the
conventional coherent approach. In the remaining part of this chapter,
several fundamental chaotic synchronization schemes, and several chaos-
based communication schemes will be reviewed. Finally, some open issues
for chaos-based communications will be discussed.

1.1 Historical Account

In 1831, Faraday studied shallow water waves III a container vibrating

vertically with a given frequency OJ. In the experiment, he observed the
sudden appearance of sub harmonic motion at half the vibrating frequency
(OJ / 2) under certain conditions. This experiment was later repeated by Lord
Rayleigh who discussed this experiment in the classic paper Theory of
Sound, published in 1877. This experiment has been repeatedly studied since
1960's. The reason why researchers have returned to this experiment is that
the sudden appearance of sub harmonic motion often prophesies the prelude
to chaos.
2
 Chapter 1 Chaos and Commnnications

Poincare discovered what is today known as homo clinic trajectories in

the state space. In 1892, this was published in his three-volume work on
Celestial Mechanics. Only in 1962 did Smale prove that Poincare's homoc-
linic trajectories are chaotic limit sets [5].
In 1927, Van der Pol and Van der Mark studied the behavior of a neon
bulb RC oscillator driven by a sinusoidal voltage source [6]. They discovered
that by increasing the capacitance in the circuit, sudden jumps from the
drive frequency, say w to w/2, then to w/3, etc., occurred in the response.
These frequency jumps were observed, or more accurately heard, with a
telephone receiver. They found that this process of frequency demul-
tiplication (as they called it) eventually led to irregular noise. In fact, what
they observed, in today's language, turned out to be caused by bifurcations
and chaos. In 1944, Levinson conjectured that Birkhoffs remarkable curves
might occur in the behavior of some third-order systems. This conjecture
was answered affirmatively in 1949 by Levinson [7].
Birkhoff proved his famous Ergodic Theorem in 1931 [8]. He also
discovered what he termed remarkable curves or thick curves, which were
also studied by Charpentier in 1935 [9]. Later, these turned out to be a chaotic
attractor of a discrete-time system. These curves have also been found to be
fractal with dimension between 1 and 2.
In 1936, Chaundy and Phillips [10] studied the convergence of sequences
defined by quadratic recurrence formulae. Essentially, they investigated the
logistic map. They introduced the terminology that a sequence oscillates
irrationally. Today this is known as chaotic oscillation.
Inspired by the discovery made by Van der Pol and Van der Mark, two
mathematicians, Cartwright and Littlewood [11] embarked on a theoretical
study of the system studied earlier by Van der Pol and Van der Mark. In
1945, they published a proof of the result that the driven Van der Pol system
can exhibit nonperiodic solutions. Later, Levinson [7] referred to these
solutions as singular behavior.
Melnikov [12] introduced his perturbation method for chaotic systems in
1963. This method is mainly applied to driven dynamical systems.
3
1.1 Historical Accouut

In 1963, Lorenz [13], a meteorologist, studied a simplified model for

thermal convection numerically. The model (today called the Lorenz model)
consisted of a completely deterministic system of three nonlinearly coupled
ordinary differential equations. He discovered that this simple deterministic
system exhibited irregular fluctuations in its response without any external
element of randomness being introduced into the system.
Cook and Roberts [14] discovered chaotic behavior exhibited by the
Rikitake two-disc dynamo system in 1970. This is a model for the time
evolution of the earth magnetic field.
In 1971, Ruelle and Takens [15] introduced the term strange attractor for
dissipative dynamical systems. They also proposed a new mechanism for the
on-set of turbulence in the dynamics offluids.
It was in 1975 that chaos was formally defined for one-dimensional
transformations by Li and Yorke [16]. They went further and presented
sufficient conditions for so-called Li -Yorke chaos to be exhibited by a
certain class of one-dimensional mappings. In 1976, May called attention to
the very complicated behavior which included period-doubling bifurcations
and chaos exhibited by some very simple population models [17]. In
1978, Feigenbaum discovered scaling properties and universal constants
(Feigenhaum's number) in one-dimensional mappings [18]. Thereafter, the
idea of a renormalization group was introduced for studying chaotic systems.
In 1980, Packard et al. [19] introduced the technique of state-space recon-
struction using the so-called delay coordinates. This technique was later
placed on a firm mathematical foundation by Takens. In 1983, Chua [20]
discovered a simple electronic circuit for synthesizing the specific third-order
piecewise-linear ordinary differential equations. This circuit became known
as Chua's circuit (see the following chapter). What makes this circuit so
remarkable is that its dynamical equations have been proven to exhibit chaos
in a rigorous sense. Ott, Grebogi and Yorke, in 1990 [21], presented a method
for controlling unstable trajectories embedded in a chaotic attractor.
At the same time, there was another course of events leading to the field
of chaos. This was the study of nonintegrable Hamiltonian systems in classical
4
 Chapter 1 Chaos and Commnnications

mechanics. Research in this field has led to the formulation and proof of the
Kolmogorov-Amold-Moser (KAM) theorem in the early 1960's. Numerical
studies have shown that when the conditions stated by the KAM theorem
fails, then stochastic behavior is exhibited by nonintegrable Hamiltonian
systems.
Remarks: Today, chaos has been discovered in bio-systems, meteorology,
cosmology, economics, population dynamics, chemistry, physics, mechanical
and electrical engineering, and many other areas. The research direction has
been transferring from fmding the evidence of chaos existence into applications
and deep theoretical study.

1.2 Chaos

There are many possible definitions of chaos for dynamical systems, among
which Devaney's definition (for discrete-time systems) is a very popular one
because it applies to a large number of important examples.

Theorem 1.1 [22]

Let Q be a set.f: Q---+ Q is said to be chaotic on Q if:
(1) fhas sensitive dependence on initial conditions, i.e., there exists (» 0
such that, for any x EQ and any neighborhood U of x, there exists Y E U and
n?oO such that IF(x)-F(Y)1 >0;
(2) f is topological transitive, i.e., for any pair of open sets V, We Q
there exists k> 0 such that fk (V) n w -:j:. 0;
(3) periodic points are dense in Q.

1.3 Quantifying Chaotic Behavior

Lyapunov exponents, entropy and dimensionality are usually used to quantify

(characterize) a chaotic attractor's behavior. Lyapunov exponents indicate
the average rates of convergence and divergence of a chaotic atiractor in the
state space. Kolmogorov Entropy (KE) is used to reveal the rate of information

5
1.3 Quantifying Chaotic Behavior

loss along the attractor. Dimensionality is used to quantify the geometric

structure of a chaotic attractor.

1.3.1 Lyapunov Exponents for Continuous-Time Nonlinear Systems

The determination of Lyapunov exponents is important in the analysis of a

possibly chaotic system, since Lyapunov exponents not only show qualita-
tively the sensitive dependence on initial conditions but also give a quantitative
measure of the average rate of separation or attraction of nearby trajectories
on the attractor. Here, we only state the definitions of Lyapunov exponents
for continuous-time and discrete-time (see next subsection) nonlinear systems.
More detailed descriptions of various algorithms for calculating Lyapunov
exponents can be found in references [23 - 33].
In the direction of stretching, two nearby trajectories diverge; while in the
directions of squeezing, nearby trajectories converge. Ifwe approximate this
divergence and convergence by exponential functions, the rates of stretching
and squeezing would be quantified by the exponents. These are called the
Lyapunov exponents. Since the exponents vary over the state space, one has
to take the long time average exponential rates of divergence (or convergence)
of nearby orbits.
The total number of Lyapunov exponents is equal to the degree of freedom
of the system. If the system trajectories have at least one positive Lyapunov
exponent, then those trajectories are either unstable or chaotic. If the
trajectories are bounded and have positive Lyapunov exponents, the system
definitely includes chaotic behavior. The larger the positive exponent is, the
shorter the predictable time scale of system. The estimation of the largest
exponent therefore assumes a special importance.
For a given continuous-time dynamical system in an m-dimensional phase
space, we monitor the long-term evolution of an infinitesimal m-sphere of
initial conditions. The sphere will evolve into an m-ellipsoid due to the locally

6
 Chapter 1 Chaos and Communications

deforming nature of the flow. The ith one-dimensional Lyapunov exponent

can be defined in terms of the length of the ellipsoidal principal axis Ii (I):

A; = lim!lnI/JI) I, (1.1)
Hoo 1 1;(0)

whenever the limit exists [24,25]. Thus, the Lyapunov exponents are related
to the expanding or the contracting nature of the principal axes in phase
space. A positive Lyapunov exponent describes an exponentially increasing
separation of nearby trajectories in a certain direction. This property, in tum,
leads to the sensitive dependence of the dynamics on the initial conditions,
which is a necessary condition for chaotic behavior. Since the orientation of
the ellipsoid changes continuously as it evolves, the directions associated
with a given exponent vary in a complicated way through the attractor. We
cannot therefore speak of a well defined direction associated with a given
exponent.
For systems whose equations of motion are known explicitly, Benettin el
al. [25] have proposed a straightforward technique for computing the complete
Lyapunov spectrum. This method can be described in principle as follows.
Let an m-dimensional compact manifold M be the state space of a
dynamical system. The system on M is a nonlinear differentiable map ([J:
M ---+M, which can be conveniently described by the following difference
equation:

x(n) = ([J(x(n -1» = ([In (x(o». (1.2)

Let v(O) denote an initial perturbation of a generic point x(O), and & be a
sufficiently small constant. Consider the separation of trajectories of the
unperturbed and perturbed points after n iterations:

a
II ([In (x(O» - ([In (x(O) + &v(O» II = II D([Jn (x(O»v(O)& II 0(&2)

= II( D([Jn (x(k» }(O)&II + 0(&2),

(1.3)
7
1.3 Quautifying Chaotic Behavior

where D<p(x(k)) is the Jacobian, i.e., the m x m matrix of partial derivatives

of <P evaluated at the point x(k), 0(&2) is the higher order term, and 11'11

represents the Euclidean norm. Let the distinct eigenvalues D<P( x( k)) be
denoted by {dik : k = 0"", n -1; i = 1,' ", m}. Then the Lyapunov exponents of
the dynamical system are defined by

(1.4)

Unfortunately, this method cannot be applied directly to experimental data,

since we do not usually know the underlying dynamical equations. For
experimental data, one has to resort to Eq. (1.1).

1.3.2 Lyapunov Exponent for Discrete-Time Systems

Consider any initial condition xo, and let {Xk };~o be the corresponding orbit
of a p-dimensional, discrete-time map 1Jf. Let mI(k), m2(k),'" , mik) be the
eigenvalues of DlJfk(xo). The ith one-dimensional Lyapunov exponent of IJf
with respect to Xo can be defined as

(1.5)

whenever the limit exists [29].

1.3.3 Kolmogorov Entropy

The Kolmogorov entropy (KE), also known as metric entropy or Kolmogorov-

Sinai entropy, is also an important measure by which a chaotic motion in an
arbitrary dimensional phase space can be characterized (quantified) [34 - 36].
The Kolmogorov entropy of an attractor can be considered as a measure of
the rate of information loss along the attractor or as a measure of the degree
of predictability of points along the attractor, given an arbitrary initial point.

8
 Chapter 1 Chaos and Communications

Consider the trajectory of a dynamical system on a strange attractor and

divide the phase space into L-dimensional hypercubes of volume SL. Let
P;o,ij,.,i, be the probability that a trajectory is in hypercube io at t= 0, i 1 at t= T,
i2 at t= 2T, and so on. Then the quantity

Kn= - I, P;o,ij, ·.,i, In(P;o,ij,... ,i) (1.6)

io,i1 .. ··,in

is proportional to the information needed to locate the system on a special

trajectory with precision s [37, 38]. Therefore, K N+1 - KN is the additional infor-
mation needed to predict which cube the trajectory will be in at (n + 1)T,
given trajectories up to nT. This means that K N+1 - KN measures the loss of
information about the system from time instant n to the next n + 1. The KE
is then defined as the average rate of information loss in the following way:

1 N-l
K=lim lim lim -I,(Kn +1 -KJ. (1.7)
T -->0 &-->0+ N -->00 NT n=O

The order in which the limits in the above expression are taken is immaterial.
The limit s ----> 0 makes KE independent of the particular partition. The main
properties ofKE are as follows:
(1) The entropy K (averaged) determines the rate of change in infor-
mation entropy (i.e., Eq. (1.6)) as a result of a purely dynamical process of
mixing of trajectories in phase space.
(2) The entropy is a metric invariant of the system, i.e., its value being
independent of the way that the phase space is divided into cells and coarsened.
(3) Systems with identical values of entropy are in a certain sense
isomorphic to each other [39, 40], i.e., these systems must have identical
statistical laws of motion.
(4) When applied to prediction, KE can be interpreted as the average rate
at which the accuracy of a prediction decays as prediction time increases,
i.e., the rate at which predictability will be lost [37].

9
1.3 Quantifying Chaotic Behavior

1.3.4 Attractor Dimension

Long-term chaotic motion in dissipative dynamical systems is confined to a

strange attractor whose geometric structure is invariant to the evolution of
the dynamics. Typically, a strange attractor is a fractal object and, consequently,
there are many possible notions of the dimension for strange attractor. Here,
we discuss some well-known and widely accepted definitions of attractor
dimension. We also discuss the simple relationships to Lyapunov exponents
and entropy.
Dissipative chaotic systems are typically ergodic. All initial conditions
within the system's basin of attraction lead to a chaotic attractor in the state
space, which can be associated with a time-invariant probability measure.
Intuitively, the dimension of the chaotic attractor should reflect the amount
of information required to specify a location on the attractor with a certain
precision. This intuition is formalized by defining the information dimension,
d" of the chaotic attractor as

-1· In p[Bx (&)]

d[ - 1m , (1.8)
<-->0 In&

where p[Bx(&)] denotes the mass of the measure p contained in a ball of

radius & centered at the point x in the state space [2, 41]. Information dimen-
sion is important from an experimental viewpoint because it is straight-
forward to estimate. The mass, p[Bx(&)] ' can be estimated by

(1.9)

where U(-) is the Heaviside function, and M is the number of points in the
phase space. In typical experiments, the state vector x is estimated from a
delay embedding of an observed time-series [42].
The information dimension as defmed above, however, depends on the
particular point x in the state space being considered. Grassberger and
Procaccia's approach eliminates this dependence [43] by defming the quantity

10
 Chapter 1 Chaos and Communications

(1.10)

and then defining the correlation dimension de as

de = lim In C(l'). (1.11 )

B--+O Inl'

In practice, one usually plots In C( £ ) as a function of In £ and then measures

the slope of the curve to obtain an estimate of de [44 - 66]. It is often the
case that d, and de are approximately equal.
The box-counting dimension (capacity), do, of a set is defined as

-1· 1n.ll/(c)
d0 - 1m , (1.12)
&-->0 1n(l/ c)

where .11/(.0) is the minimum number of N-dimensional cube of side length

£ needed to cover the set.
There is a meaningful relationship between the Lyapunov dimension and
Lyapunov exponents for chaotic systems [41, 67, 68]. If AI, ... , AN are the
Lyapunov exponents of a chaotic system, then the Lyapunov dimension, dL ,
is defined as

(1.13)

where k = max {i : ~ + ... + Ai > O}. It has been shown that do ?cd" d,~dc [43, 69].
Equation (1.14) suggests that only the first k + 1 Lyapunov exponents are
important for specifying the dimensionality of the chaotic attractor. Kaplan et
al. [67, 68] conjectured that d, = dL in "almost" all cases. Clearly, if this is correct,
then Eq. (1.13) provides a straightforward way to estimate the attractor
dimension when the dynamical equations of motion are known.
The relation between KE and Lyapunov exponents is also available. In
one-dimensional maps, KE is just the Lyapunov exponent [70]. In higher-
dimensional systems, we lose information about the system because the cell
in which it was previously located spreads over new cells in phase space at a

11
1.4 Properties of Chaos

rate determined by the Lyapunov exponents. The rate K at which the

information about the system is lost is equal to the (averaged) sum of the
positive Lyapunov exponents [71], as shown by

(1.14)

where A's are the positive Lyapunov exponents of the dynamical system
being considered.

1.4 Properties of Chaos

It is now well-known that a deterministic dynamical system is one whose

state evolves with time according to a deterministic evolution rule. The time
evolution of the state is completely determined by the initial state of the
system, the input, and the rule. For example, the state of a digital filter is
determined by the initial state of the filter, the input, and a difference
equation which describes the evolution of the state from one time instant to
the next.
In contrast to a stochastic dynamical system, which may follow any number
of different trajectories from a given state according to some probabilistic
rule, trajectories of a deterministic dynamical system are unique. From any
given state, there is only one "next" state. Therefore, the same system started
twice from the same initial state with the same input will follow precisely
the same trajectory through the state space. Deterministic dynamical systems
can produce a variety of steady-state behaviors, the most familiar of which
are stationary, periodic, and quasi-periodic solutions. These solutions are
"predictable" in the sense that a small piece of a trajectory enables one to
predict the future behavior along that trajectory. Chaos refers to solutions of
deterministic dynamical systems which, while predictable in the short-term,
exhibit long-term unpredictability.
Since the initial state, input, and rule uniquely determine the behavior of a
deterministic dynamical system, it is not obvious that any "unpredictability"

12
 Chapter 1 Chaos and Communications

is possible. Long-term unpredictability arises because the dynamics of a

chaotic system persistently amplifies errors in specifying the state. Thus,
two trajectories starting from nearby initial conditions quickly become
uncorrelated. This is because in a chaotic system, the precision with which
the initial conditions must be specified in order to predict the behavior over
some specified time interval grows exponentially with the length of the
prediction interval. As a result, long-term prediction becomes impossible.
This long-term unpredictability manifests itself in the frequency domain as a
continuous power spectrum, and in the time domain as random "noiselike"
signal.
To get a better idea of what chaos is, here is a list of its main characteristics
(properties) :
(1) Chaos results from a deterministic nonlinear process.
(2) The motion looks disorganized and erratic, although sustained. In fact,
it can usually pass all statistical tests for randorrmess (thereby we cannot
distinguish chaotic data from random data easily), and has an invariant
probability distribution. The Fourier spectrum (power spectrum) is "broad"
(noiselike) but with some periodicities sticking up here and there [72, 73].
(3) Details of the chaotic behavior are hypersensitive to changes in initial
conditions (minor changes in the starting values of the variables). Equivalently,
chaotic signals rapidly decorrelate with themselves. The autocorrelation
function of a chaotic signal has a large peak at zero and decays rapidly.
(4) It can result from relatively simple systems. In nonautonomous system,
chaos can take place even when the system has only one state variable. In
autonomous systems, it can happen with as few as three state variables.
(5) For given conditions or control parameters, chaos is entirely self-
generated. In other words, changes in other (i.e., external) variables or
parameters are not necessary.
(6) It is not the result of data inaccuracies, such as sampling error or
measurement error. Any specific initial conditions (right or wrong), as long
as the control parameter is within an appropriate range, can lead to chaos.
(7) In spite of its disjointed appearance, chaos includes one or more types

13
1.5 Chaos-Based Commuuicatious

of order or structure. The phase space trajectory may have fractal property
(self-similarity).
(8) The ranges of the variables have finite bounds, which restrict the
attractor to a certain finite region in the phase space.
(9) Forecasts of long-term behavior are meaningless. The reasons are
sensitivity to initial conditions and the impossibility of measuring a variable
to absolute accuracy. Short-term predictions, however, can be relatively
accurate.
(10) As a control parameter changes systematically, an initially non-
chaotic system follows one of a few typical scenarios, called routes to chaos.

1.5 Chaos-Based Communications

1.5.1 Conventional Spread Spectrum

In recent years, there has been explosive growth in personal communica-

tions, the aim of which is to guarantee the availability of voice and/or data
services between mobile communication terminals. In order to provide these
services, radio links are required for a large number of compact terminals in
densely populated areas. As a result, there is a need to provide high-
frequency, low-power, low-voltage circuitry. The huge demand for com-
munications results in a large number of users; therefore, today's com-
munication systems are limited primarily by interference from other users.
In some applications, the efficient use of available bandwidth is extremely
important, but in other applications, where the exploitation of communica-
tion channels is relatively low, a wideband communication technique having
limited bandwidth effciency can also be used.
Often, many users must be provided with simultaneous access to the same
or neighboring frequency bands. The optimum strategy in this situation, where
every user appears as interference to every other user, is for each communi-
cator's signal to look like white noise which is as wideband as possible.

14
 Chapter 1 Chaos and Communications

There are two ways in which a communicator's signal can be made to

appear like wideband noise:
(1) spreading each symbol using a pseudo-random sequence to increase
the bandwidth of the transmitted signal;
(2) representing each symbol by a piece of "noiselike" waveform [74].
The conventional solution to this problem is the first approach: to use a
synchronizable pseudo-random sequence to distribute the energy of the
information signal over a much larger bandwidth to transmit the baseband
information. The transmitted signal appears similar to noise and is therefore
diffcult to detect by eavesdroppers. In addition, the signal is difficult to jam
because its power spectral density is low. By using orthogonal spreading
sequences, multiple users may communicate simultaneously on the same
channel, which is termed Direct Sequence Code Division Multiple Access
(DS/CDMA). Therefore, the conventional solution can:
(1) combat the effects of interference due to jamming, other users, and
multipath effects;
(2) hide a signal "in the noise" by transmitting it at low power; and
(3) have some message privacy in the presence of eavesdroppers.
With rapidly increasing requirements for some new communication
services, such as wideband data and video, which are much more spectrum-
intensive than voice service, communication networks are already reaching
their available resource limitation. Some intrinsic shortcomings of the
convenient DS/CDMA have been known. For example, the periodic nature
of the spreading sequences, the limited number of available orthogonal
sequences, and the periodic nature of the carrier, are imposed to DS/CDMA
systems in order to achieve and maintain carrier and symbol synchronization.
One further problem is that the orthogonality of the spreading sequences
requires the synchronization of all spreading sequences used in the same
frequency band, i.e., the whole system must be synchronized. Due to
different propagation times for different users, perfect synchronization can
never be achieved in real systems [75]. In addition, DS/CDMA systems
using binary spreading sequences do not provide much protection against
15
1.5 Chaos-Based Communications

two particular interception methods: the carrier regeneration and the code
clock regeneration detectors [76]. This is due to the binary nature of the
spreading sequences used in binary waveforms.
The intrinsic properties of chaotic signals stated previously provide an
alternative approach to making a transmission "noiselike". Specifically, the
transmitted symbols are not represented as weighted sums of periodic basis
functions but as inherently nonperiodic chaotic signals, which will be
described in the following subsections.

1.5.2 Spread Spectrum with Chaos

The properties of chaotic signals resemble in many ways those of the stochastic
ones. Chaotic signals also possess a deterministic nature, which makes it
possible to generate "noiselike" chaotic signals in a theoretically reproducible
manner. Therefore, a pseudo-random sequence generator is a "practical"
case of a chaotic system, the principal difference being that the chaotic
system has an infinite number of (analog) states, while pseudo-random
generator has a finite number (of digital states). A pseudo-random sequence
is produced by visiting each state of the system once in a deterministic
manner. With only a finite number of states to visit, the output sequence is
necessarily periodic. By contrast, an analog chaos generator can visit an
infinite number of states in a deterministic manner and therefore produces
an output sequence, which never repeats itself. With appropriate modulation
and demodulation techniques, the "random" nature and "noiselike" spectral
properties of chaotic electronic circuits can be used to provide simultaneous
spreading and modulation of a transmission.

1.5.3 Chaotic Synchronization

How then would one use a chaotic signal in communication? A first

approach would be to hide a message in a chaotic carrier and then extract it

16
 Chapter 1 Chaos and Communications

by some nonlinear, dynamical means at the receiver. If we do this in real-

time, we immediately lead to the requirement that somehow the receiver
must have a duplicate of the transmitter's chaotic signal or, better yet,
synchronize with the transmitter. In fact, synchronization is a requirement of
many types of communication, not only chaotic possibilities.
Early work on synchronous coupled chaotic systems was done by Yamada
and Fujisaka [77, 78]. In that work, some sense of how the dynamics might
change was brought out by a study of the Lyapunov exponents of
synchronized coupled systems. Later, Afraimovich et al. [79] exposed many
of the concepts necessary for analyzing synchronous chaos. A crucial
progress was made by Pecora and Carroll [80 - 84], who have shown theore-
tically and experimentally that two chaotic systems can be synchronized.
This discovery bridges between chaos theories and communications, and
opens up a new research area in communications using chaos.
The driving response synchronization configuration proposed by Pecora
and Carroll is shown in Fig. 1.1, in which the Lorenz system is used in the
transmitter and the receiver, where Xi or X; (i = 1,2,3, r standing for the
response system) is the state variable of the Lorenz system [13], Ii is the ith
state equation, and 11 (t) is additive channel noise. The drive-response
synchronization method indicates that if a chaotic system can be decomposed
into subsystems, a drive system Xl and a conditionally stable response
system (X2' X3) in this example [82], then the identical chaotic system at the
receiver can be synchronized when driven with a common signal. The output
signals x; and x; will follow the signals X2 and X3. For more discussions on
chaotic synchronization, see [83].

~i:l(t)~ll(Xl(t), X2(t), x3(t)) x 1(t) y(l) xf (t)~ll (Y (f). x~(t), x3(t))

~icit)~lixl(t), x 2 (t), x 3(t)) x2(t)~12( Y (I), x2(t), x{(I)) x;(t)
xJ(I)~13(X 1(I), xit), x 3(t)) xj (t)~13( Y (I), x~(t), xl(tll
11(1)
Drive system Response system

Figure 1.1 Drive-response synchronization schematic diagram, in which Xi or x;

(i = 1,2,3, r stands for the response system) is the state variable of the Lorenz
system [13], Ii is the ith state equation, and 17 (t) is additive channel noise

17
1.5 Chaos-Based Communications

Based on the self-synchronization properties of chaotic systems, some

chaotic communication systems using chaotic carriers have been proposed.
Since the performance of such communication systems will strongly depend
on the synchronization capability of chaotic systems, the robustness of se1f-
synchronization in the presence of white noise needs to be explored [85].
Inspired by Pecora and Carroll's work, many other synchronization schemes
have been proposed, including error feedback synchronization [87], inverse
system synchronization [88], adaptive synchronization [89], generalized syn-
chronization [90], etc.
The error feedback synchronization is borrowed from the field of
automatic control. An error signal is derived from the difference between the
output of the receiver system and that received from the transmitter. The
error signal is then used to modify the state of the receiver such that it can be
synchronized with the transmitter.
The operating theory of the inverse system synchronization scheme is as
follows. If a system L with state x(t) and input set) produces an output yet),
1
then its inverse L- produces an output Yr(t) = s(t) and its state xr(t) has
synchronized with x(t).
Adaptive synchronization scheme makes use of the procedure of adaptive
control and introduces the time dependent changes in a set of available
system parameters. This scheme is realized by perturbing the system
parameters whose increments depend on the deviations of the system variables
from the desired values and also on the deviations of the parameters from
their correct values corresponding to the desired state.
Generalized synchronization of the uni-directionally coupled systems

x = F(x) (x E ffi.", drive) (1.15)

y = H(y, x) (y E ffi.", response) (1.16)

occurs for the attractor Ax c lR of the drive system if an attracting syn-

chronization set

18
 Chapter 1 Chaos and Commnnications

M = {(X,y) E A/]Rm : y = H(x)} (1.17)

exists and is given by some function H:Ar~Ayc]Rm. Also, M possesses an

open basin 13 ::J M such that:

lim II y(t) - H(x(t)) 11= 0, \t(x(O), y(O)) E 13. (1.18)

1-'>00

It was reported in [91] that for a linear bandpass communication channel with
additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN), drive-response synchronization is
not robust (signal-to-noise ratio, > 30 dB is required) and the continuous-
time analog inverse system exhibits extreme noise sensitivity (SNR > 40 dB
is required to maintain synchronization). Further, recent studies of chaotic
synchronization, where significant noise and filtering have been introduced
to the channel, indicate that the performance of chaotic synchronization
schemes is worse, at low SNR, than that of the best synchronization schemes
for sinusoids [92].

1.6 Communications Using Chaos as Carriers

The use of modulating an aperiodic or nonperiodic chaotic waveform, instead

of a periodic sinusoidal signal, for carrying information messages has been
proposed since chaotic synchronization phenomenon was discovered. In
particular, chaotic masking [85,93], dynamical feedback modulation [94],
inverse system modulation [95], chaotic modulation [88, 96 - 10 1], chaotic-
shift-keying (CSK) [102 - 112], and differential chaos shift keying
(DCSK) [113], have been proposed. In the following, we will provide a brief
summary of these schemes.

1.6.1 Chaotic Masking Modulation

The basic idea of a chaotic masking modulation scheme is based on chaotic

signal masking and recovery. As shown in Fig. 1.2, in which the Lorenz

19
1.6 Communications Using Chaos as Carriers

system is also used as the chaotic generator, we add a noiselike chaotic

signal Xl (t) to the information signal met) at the transmitter, and at the
receiver the masking signal is removed [85, 86,93]. The received signaly(t),
consisting of masking, information and noise signals, is used to regenerate
the masking signal at the receiver. The masking signal is then subtracted
from the received signal to retrieve the information signal denoted by m(t).
The regeneration of the masking signal can be done by synchronizing the
receiver chaotic system with the transmitter chaotic system. This communi-
cation system could be used for analog and digital information data. Cuomo
et al. [85] built a Lorenz system circuit and demonstrated the performance
of chaotic masking modulation system with a segment of speech from a
sentence. The performance of the communication system greatly relies on
the synchronization ability of chaotic systems. The masking scheme works
only when the amplitudes of the information signals are much smaller than
the masking chaotic signals.

.i:[(I)=I[(x[(t), x 2(1), "3(1» .i:[ (1)=/[ (JJ (I), x~(t), xj(l))

xil)=Iz{x[(I), x2(1), x3(1» .i:2(t)=iz( Y (f), x;[(t), x 3(1))
·i:3(t)=ll~[(I), x 2(1), x3(1» ,iej(t)=i 3( Y (f), x 2(t), x 3(1»
l1(t) in (I)
Drive system Response system

Figure 1.2 Block diagram of a chaotic masking modulation communication system,

in which Xi or X; (i = 1,2, 3, r stands for the response system) is the state variable
of the Lorenz system [13], Ii is the ith state equation, 77 (t) is additive channel noise,
met) and m(t) are the injected message signal and the recovered message signal

1.6.2 Dynamical Feedback Modulation

To avoid the restriction of the small amplitude of the information signal,

another modulation scheme, called dynamical feedback modulation, has
been proposed in [94]. As shown in Fig. 1.3, in which the Lorenz system is
used again as the chaotic generator, the basic idea is to feedback the
information signal into the chaotic transmitter in order to have identical
20
 Chapter 1 Chaos and Communications

input signals for both the chaotic transmitter and the receiver. Specifically,
the transmitted signal, consisting of the information signal met) and the
chaotic signal Xl (t), is communicated to the receiver which is identical to the
chaotic transmitter. Since the reconstructed signal x; (t) will be identical to
x(t) in the absence of noise '7(t), the information signal met) can be decoded
from the received signal.

m(t)
~i:/t)~ll(xl(t)+m(t), xit), X3(t» xl(t)~ll (y(t), -'2(t), x](t))
x2(t)~lixl(t)+m(t), xit), x3(t)) xM~liy(t), xW), xj(t))
x3(t)~lixl(t)+m(t), x 2(t), x3(t» xW)~13( y(t), x2(t), xj(t)
met)
Drive system Response system

Figure 1.3 Block diagram of a dynamical feedback modulation communication

system, in which Xi or X; (i = 1, 2, 3, r stands for the response system) is the state
variable of the Lorenz system [13], (is the ith state equation, 1] (t) is additive channel
noise, met) and m(t) are the injected message signal and the recovered message signal
This analog communication technique can be applied to binary data
communication by setting met) = C if the binary information data is one, and
met) = - C if the binary data is zero. Since the feedback information will
affect the chaotic property, the information level C should be scaled
carefully to make the transmitter chaotic to maintain the desired communi-
cation security.

1.6.3 Inverse System Modulation

In the inverse system approach [95], the transmitter consists of a chaotic

system which is excited by the information signal set). The output yet) of the
transmitter is chaotic. The receiver is simply the inverse system, i.e., a
system which produces ret) = set) as output when excited by yet) and started
from the same initial condition. If the system is properly designed, the
output ret) will approach set), regardless of the initial conditions.

21
1.6 Communications Using Chaos as Carriers

1.6.4 Chaotic Modulation

In chaotic modulation [88,96-101], the message signal is injected into a

chaotic system as a bifurcation "parameter,,(j), with the range of the
bifurcation parameter chosen to guarantee motion in a chaotic region (for
more details, see Sec. 7.2). The main advantage of the chaotic modulation
scheme is that it does not require any code synchronization, which is
necessary in traditional spread spectrum communication systems using
coherent demodulation techniques. The crucial design factor is, however, the
retrieval of the bifurcation "parameter" variation from the receiving spread
spectrum signal, which may be distorted by nonideal channel and contaminated
by noise (one of the goals of this book is to investigate signal reconstruction
techniques at the receiving end such that the bifurcation parameter and
hence the injected message can be recovered).

1.6.5 Chaos Shift Keying

In binary CKS [102-112] as shown in Fig. 1.4 (a), an information signal is

encoded by transmitting one chaotic signal Zj (t) for a "1" and another
chaotic signal zo(t) to represent the binary symbol "0". The two chaotic
signals come from two different systems (or the same system with different
parameters); these signals are chosen to have similar statistical properties.
Two demodulation schemes are possible: coherent and non-coherent. The
coherent receiver contains copies of the systems corresponding to "0" and
"1". Depending on the transmitted signal, one of these copies will
synchronize with the incoming signal and the other will desynchronize at the
receiver. Thus, one may determine which bit is being transmitted. A
coherent demodulator is shown in Fig. 1.4 (b), in which Zt(t) and zo(t) are
the regenerated chaotic signals at the receiver.

(j)Bifurcation parameters determine the dynamical behavior of a dynamical system. For some selected
range of the parameter values, the system can demonstrate chaotic behavior [22].

22
 Chapter 1 Chaos and Communications

Transmitter
x(t)

"0" t
Digital infomlation
to be transmitted

I I
: - - - - ________________
Receiver I I Channel
~L ______ _

(al

Correlator

yet) - - , - - - - - - - - - - 1

Synchronization
circuit
Symbol
duration

Synchronization
circuit Correlator

Digital infomlation
received
Threshold
detector
(b)

Figure 1.4 Chaos shift keying digital communication system. Block diagrams of
(a) the system, and (b) a coherent CSK demodulator

One type of non-coherent receivers requires the transmitted chaotic signals

having different bit energies for "1" and "0". By comparing the bit energy
with a decision threshold, one can retrieve the transmitted source information
signal. Moreover, other non-coherent schemes exploit the distinguishable
property of the chaotic attractors for demodulation, such as in Tse et al. [114].
In particular, if the two chaotic signals come from the same system

23
1.6 Communications Using Chaos as Carriers

with different bifurcation parameters, demodulation can be performed by

estimating the bifurcation parameter of the "reconstructed" chaotic signals.

1.6.6 Differential Chaos Shift Keying Modulation

When the channel condition is so poor that it is impossible to achieve

chaotic synchronization, a differential chaotic modulation technique for
digital communication, called DCSK, has been introduced [113]. This
modulation scheme is similar to that of the differential phase shift keying
(DPSK) in the conventional digital communication except that the transmitted
signal is chaotic. That is, in DCSK, every symbol to be transmitted is
represented by two sample functions. For bit" 1", the same chaotic signal are
transmitted twice in succession while bit "0" is sent by transmitting the
reference chaotic signal followed by an inverted copy of the same signal. At
the receiver the two received signals are correlated and the decision is made
by a zero-threshold comparator. The DCSK technique offers additional
advantages over the CSK:
(l) The noise performance of a DSCK communication system in terms of
bit error rate (BER) versus EblNo (Eb is the energy per bit and No is the
power spectral density of the noise introduced in the channel) outperforms
the BER of a standard non-coherent CSK system. For sufficiently large bit
duration, the noise performance of DCSK is comparable to that of a
conventional sinusoid-based modulation scheme. In particular, EblNo = 13.5
dB is required for BER= 10-3 [115].
(2) Because synchronization is not required, a DCSK receiver can be
implemented using very simple circuitry.
(3) DCSK is not as sensitive to channel distortion as coherent methods
since both the reference and the information-bearing signal pass through the
same channel.
The main disadvantage of DCSK results from differential coding: Eb is
doubled and the symbol rate is halved.

24
 Chapter 1 Chaos and Communications

1.7 Remarks on Chaos-Based Communications

1.7.1 Security Issues

Recent studies [116 - 118] have shown that communication schemes using
chaotic or hyperchaotic sources have limited security. Therefore, most of the
chaos-based communication schemes are based on the viewpoint that
security is an added feature in a communication system, which may be
implemented by adding encryption/decryption hardware at each end of the
system.

1. 7.2 Engineering Challenges

The field of "communications with chaos" presents many challenging research

and development problems at the basic, strategic, and applied levels.
The building blocks with which to construct a practical chaos-based spread
spectrum communication system already exist: chaos generators, modulation
schemes, and demodulators. Nevertheless, further research and development
are required in all of these subsystems in order to improve robustness to a
level that can be comparable to existing conventional system.
Synchronization schemes for chaotic spreading signals are not yet
sufficiently robust to be competitive with pseudo-random spreading sequences.
Nevertheless, they do offer theoretical advantages in terms of basic security
level. Furthermore, an analog implementation of chaotic spreading may
permit the use of simple low power, high-frequency circuitry.
Although an improved scheme, called frequency modulation DCSK
(FMDCSK) [115], shows a better performance under multipath environment,
channel characteristics are not fully taken into account yet, which limits its
realizability in practical environments.
Finally, there are still many practical problems that need to be solved, for
example, the extension of multiple access design is a practical challenging

25
1.7 Remarks on Chaos-Based Communications

issue involving both system level and basic research. The effects of bandwidth
limitation also presents different problems to the practical imple-mentation
of such systems.
In summary, chaos provides a promising approach for communications. It
should be emphasized here that the field of chaos communications is very
young: much fundamental work as well as practical problems need to be
addressed before high-performance robust chaos-based communication
systems can be generally available.

26