Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 36 (2008) 1425–1435

www.elsevier.com/locate/chaos

Synchronization of van der Pol oscillator and Chen

chaotic dynamical system
E.M. Elabbasy *, M.M. El-Dessoky
Mathematics Department, Faculty of Science, Mansoura University, Mansoura 35516, Egypt

Accepted 9 August 2006

Communicated by Prof. G. Iovane

Abstract

This paper addresses the synchronization problem of two different electronic circuits by using nonlinear control
function. This technique is applied to achieve synchronization for the stable van der Pol oscillator and Chen chaotic
dynamical system. Numerical simulations results are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control
method.
Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Chaos is a complex dynamical behavior that occurs in many nonlinear physical systems, including important devices
such as microwave sources, lasers and electronic circuits. The presence of chaos causes the time-evolution of the system
to be severely sensitive to small perturbations, thus long-range prediction of chaotic dynamical system is impossible.
In general the electronic circuits are very useful devices for studying the behavior of dynamical systems. The first
relevant application in this direction appeared just at the beginning of the science of electronics and before the arrival
of digital computers. Also, electronic circuits are particularly easy physical systems to work with. By using analog
computer techniques, one may design a circuit with a wide range of different properties. It must be emphasized that
electronic circuits do not just simulate physical systems, they are the physical systems.
In this paper we consider two kinds of circuits. The first circuit is an oscillator i.e. the voltages go through a cycle and
repeat their values after some time called the period of oscillation. One may think of these states as stable in the sense
that slight changes in the voltage will still lead us back to the same place in the circuit operation. A prototype of this
circuits is the van der Pol circuit [1]. Another kind of circuit is known as the chaotic circuit. In this circuit the voltages’
detailed future behavior depends sensitively on whether the circuit starts offslight changes that lead to big differences.
The reason for this is that there are local instabilities near the oscillation pattern. Small deviations from the pattern,
result in the system being pushed farther away from where it would have gone. This leads to the sensitivity of the circuit

*
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: emelabbasy@mans.edu.eg (E.M. Elabbasy), dessokym@mans.edu.eg (M.M. El-Dessoky).

0960-0779/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.chaos.2006.08.039
1426 E.M. Elabbasy, M.M. El-Dessoky / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 36 (2008) 1425–1435

on the initial conditions and it ends up depending strongly from where it starts. A prototype of this circuit is the Chen
circuit [2].
Our goal in this paper is the synchronization of these two circuits, van der Pol circuit and the Chen circuit. More
precisely the synchronization of the stable system is governed by the van der Pol circuit and the Chen chaotic dynamical
system by using nonlinear control function.
There are several techniques for synchronizing a chaotic receiver to a transmitter [3–9]. The oldest techniques involve
a mutial coupling between the transmitter and receiver [10,11]. The transmitter sends a signal to the receiver, and the
receiver sends a signal to the transmitter. This type of coupling is also considered to be important in biological systems
or neural networks.
In other methods for synchronizing chaotic systems, the receiver does not send a signal back to the transmitter. One
of these methods resembles the technique commonly used for synchronizing periodic systems. The difference between
the chaotic signal from the transmitter and corresponding chaotic signal from the receiver is applied to the receiver to
match the receiver signal to the transmitter signal [12]. Another method for synchronizing the chaotic receiver to the
transmitter of the receiver involves forcing one of the signals in the receiver to be the same as one of the signals in
the transmitter [13]. If the receiver is properly stable, it will then synchronize to the transmitter.
There is also a different technique known as Pecora and Carroll method [14,15]. In comparing different synchroni-
zation methods, it does not make any sense to say that any one technique is better than any other unless one has some
specific application in mind for synchronization.
Mathematicians, engineers, and physicists have all been used to be label with reference to Balthasar van der Pol.
Balthazar van der Pol was a Dutch electrical engineer who initiated modern experimental dynamics in the laboratory
during the 1920s and 1930s. van der Pol investigated electrical circuits employing vacuum tubes and found that they
have stable oscillations, now called limit cycles. When these circuits are driven with a signal whose frequency is near
that of the limit cycle, the resulting periodic response shifts its frequency to that of the driving signal. That is to
say, the circuit becomes ‘‘entrained’’ to the driving signal. The waveform, or signal shape, however, can be quite com-
plicated and contains a rich structure of harmonics and subharmonics. In the September 1927 issue of the British jour-
nal Nature, he and his colleague van der Mark reported that an ‘‘irregular noise’’ was heard at certain driving
frequencies between the natural entrainment frequencies. By reconstructing his electronic tube circuit, we now know
that they had discovered deterministic chaos. Their paper is probably one of the first experimental reports of
chaos—something that they failed to pursue in more detail. van der Pol built a number of electronic circuit models
of the human heart to study the range of stability of heart dynamics. His investigations with adding an external driving
signal were analogous to the situation in which a real heart is driven by a pacemaker. He was interested in finding out,
using his entrainment work, how to stabilize a heart’s irregular beating or ‘‘arrhythmias’’.
A brief description of a circuit described by the van der Pol equation is given in [16]. The rigorous foundations for
the analysis (e.g., the proof that the equation has a limit cycle solution which is a global attractor) date back to the work
of Lienard in 1928 , with later more general analysis by Cartwright and Littlewood [17]. Perturbation techniques are
also useful for the case of a large parameter, but we will not consider them here.

2. Differential equations model

2.1. van der Pol circuit

The van der Pol equation is

d2 x dx
 kð1  x2 Þ þ x ¼ 0; ð1Þ
dt2 dt
where k controls the way in which voltage flows through the system.
The van der Pol oscillator is one of the systems whose damping forces are nonlinear. These nonlinear damping force
have a very important property: the damping force will tend to increase the amplitude for small velocities but to decease
it for large velocities.
It follows that the state of rest is not stable and that an oscillation will be built up from rest even in the absence of
external forces, this accounts for the description of these oscillations as self-excited of self-sustained oscillations.
In general, the limit cycle system appears in various problems in nonlinear dynamics, particularly in the analysis of
relaxation oscillation, as the van der Pol equation (1) (as we have pointed out), limit cycle oscillators are also useful as
phenomenological models for studies of the low-dimensional dynamics of the heart [18]. In chemical kinetics and in
electronics, there are certain negative-resistance oscillators [19].
 E.M. Elabbasy, M.M. El-Dessoky / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 36 (2008) 1425–1435 1427

A question that has been addressed in many of these investigations refers to the behavior of limit cycle system under
an external, periodic force. If the phase space of the unforced system is two-dimensional, a time dependent external
force can lead to different responses, like periodic, quasi-periodic and chaotic motion.
The van der Pol oscillator under an external periodic force is

d2 x dx
 kð1  x2 Þ þ x ¼ kbk cos kt; ð2Þ
dt2 dt
where k and kbk are the frequency and the amplitude of the external force, respectively.
Making b 5 0, however, complicates the behavior drastically. Over many years ago it was observed experimentally
that Eq. (2) has a periodic solution of period much larger than that of a forcing term, namely, an integral multiple of 2pk
(around 400 for certain k). This effect was used in electronics to obtain low-frequency oscillations. A periodic solution
of period 2pm
k
will be called a subharmonic of order m. It was observed that for some values of bð0 < b < 23Þ the oscillator
possessed two subharmonics of different order. The experiments showed that the intervals of b for which there are one
or two observable subharmonic, alternate i.e. for b increasing, the oscillator admits alternately only one stable or only
two stable subharmonic oscillations.
This problem has been discussed analytically by Cartwright and Littlewood [20,21] and numerically by Elabbasy
[22,23] and Flaherty and Hopensteadt [24].

2.1.1. General theory

We seek the periodic solutions of (1). If x(t) is a periodic solution of Eq. (1) with period T, we have

xðmÞ ðtÞ ¼ xðmÞ ðt þ T Þ; m ¼ 0; 1; 2; . . . ;

so that (2) gives cos kt = cos(kt + kT). Hence all periodic solution of (1) are of period 2pm
k
for some integers m. The peri-
odic 2pm
k
with m odd is called a normal subharmonic of order m, while if m is even the subharmonic will be called abnor-
mal. From the general theory every trajectory of (2) eventually satisfies x 6 A, x_ 6 Aðk þ 1Þ where A is a constant
independent of k.

2.1.2. Global properties

Integrating Eq. (2) we have
X ðtÞ þ x_ ¼ kF ðxÞ þ kb sin kt þ Ck; ð3Þ

where
Z t Z x
x3
X ðtÞ ¼ xðsÞ ds; F ðxÞ ¼ ðx2  1Þ dx ¼  x;
0 0 3

and C is the constant of integration.    3

3
Define ~x by F ð~xÞ ¼ ~x3  ~x ¼ 23  c. This equation has three roots only if 3 23  c 24 þ ð3Þ
27
6 0, that is, 0 6 c 6 43
which is precisely the condition of the problem.
The trajectory of (2) decays from the value 2 and has small amplitude oscillations of period 2p k
. It reaches x = 1 from
1
above and may enter (for certain values of b) the region x 6 1 making one oscillation or more of depth o k 2 before
returning back to the region x P 1. This phenomenon is called the dip phenomenon [20]. The region x 6 1 where the
damping is negative is highly unstable. When the trajectory enters this region it is accelerated by the negative damping
and needs only a short period of time to cross it before entering the region 2 6 x 6 1 and then making the same
number of waves as in 1 6 x 6 2. The normal subharmonic of order 2n + 1 is symmetric and has n þ 12 waves above
x = 1 and a similar number of waves below x = 1, crossing the t-axis in the (t, x) plane only twice in the period.
Lemma 1. A maximum can occur only when

p 3p 2p
 oðk 1 Þ 6 t 6 þ oðk 1 Þ mod :
2k 2k k

And a minimum only when


3p 5p 2p
 oðk 1 Þ 6 t 6 þ oðk 1 Þ mod :
2k 2k k
1428 E.M. Elabbasy, M.M. El-Dessoky / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 36 (2008) 1425–1435

Proof. If €x ¼ 0, were possible at an extremum, differentiating (1) with respect to t at such a point would give
€x ¼ bk2 k sin kt. But it is necessary for an extremum that €x ¼ 0 so that sin kt = 0. This means that x = bkk, contradict-
x
ing the boundedness condition. Thus €x 6¼ 0 at an extremum. Now putting x_ ¼ 0; €x < 0; mð1Þ yields cos kt 6 bkk at a maxi-
x
mum and similarly cos kt P bkk at a minimum. These inequalities give the result. h

Lemma 2. If x(t) is a solution of (1) and t1 is an arbitrary positive number then there exists t P t1 such that x(t) = 0.

Proof. Suppose there exists t2 P t1 such that x(t) P 0 for all t P 0 for all t P t2 and x ¼ oð1Þ; x_ ¼ oðkÞ for t P t2. From
Lemma 1 in every interval
 
1 p 3 p
2n þ 6 t 6 2n þ ; 1 6 x 6 2:
2 k 2 k
Suppose that x P 1 for a time tn while t 6 ð2nþ2Þp
k
. If B is chosen so that €x 6 Bk for t P t2 it follows that either
Z x¼1
1¼ x_ dt 6 Bktn ;
x¼2

or x1 P until t ¼ ð2nþ2Þp
k
:
In both cases we have
Z ð2nþ2Þp=k
xðtÞ dt P Ak 1 :
t¼2np=k

Hence X(t) ! 1 as t ! 1 and then by (3)

So x(t) becomes negative, contrary to the hypothesis. A similar argument show that x(t) cannot remain negative for
all large t.
The van der Pol equation was introduced before chaos was systematically defined or studied and became one of the
first example to be analyzed for chaotic behavior and associated entrainment phenomena.
In this paper, we applied the nonlinear control to synchronize the stable van der Pol system with Chen chaotic
dynamical system. h

2.2. Chen system

In the following we give a brief description of the Chen system [25–27]. The system is described by the following:
dx
dt
¼ aðy  xÞ;
dy
dt
¼ ðc  aÞx þ cy  xz; ð4Þ
dz
dt
¼ xy  bz;
where a, b and c are three parameters. This system exhibits a chaotic attractor at the parameter values a = 35, b = 3
and c = 28 (see Fig. 2).The system is dissipative under the condition a + b > c and has three equilibrium points
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 
E0 ¼ ð0; 0; 0Þ; Eþ ¼ ð2c  aÞb; ð2c  aÞb; ð2c  aÞ ;

and
 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 
E ¼  ð2c  aÞb;  ð2c  aÞb; ð2c  aÞ

providing that (2c  a)b > 0, otherwise the Chen system has only one equilibrium E0.

3. Synchronization of Chen system with van der Pol oscillator

The planar limit cycle system to be considered in this section is given by

dx
dt
¼ y;
dy
ð5Þ
dt
¼ x þ kð1  x2 Þy:
This system presents a stable limit cycle (k > 0) with radius ffi 2 and an unstable equilibrium point at (0, 0), see Fig. 1.
 E.M. Elabbasy, M.M. El-Dessoky / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 36 (2008) 1425–1435 1429

20.00

10.00

0.00

-10.00

-20.00 x
-4.00 -2.00 0.00 2.00 4.00

Fig. 1. The stable limit cycle of van der Pol oscillator at k = 10.

Fig. 2. The chaotic attractor of Chen’s attractor, at a = 35, b = 3 and c = 28 in 3-dimensional.

We will study the synchronization of two different systems. For simplifying the problem, we assume that the drive
system is the Chen system with three state variables denoted by the subscript 1, and the response system is the van der
Pol with two state variables denoted by the subscript 2. Our aim is to design a controller and make the response system
trace the drive system and become ultimately the same. The Chen system, as a drive system, is described by the follow-
ing equations:
dx1
dt
¼ aðy 1  x1 Þ;
dy 1
dt
¼ ðc  aÞx1 þ cy 1  x1 z1 ; ð6Þ
dz1
dt
¼ x1 y 1  bz1 ;
and the van der Pol system , as a response system, is given by
dx2
dt
¼ y 2 þ u1 ðtÞ;
dy 2
ð7Þ
dt
¼ x2 þ kð1  x22 Þy 2 þ u2 ðtÞ;
1430 E.M. Elabbasy, M.M. El-Dessoky / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 36 (2008) 1425–1435

where U = [u1(t), u2(t)] is the controller function to be designed. The aim of this section is to determine the controller U
for the synchronization of two different attractors. For this purpose, the error dynamical system between the drive sys-
tem (6) and response system (7) can be expressed by
dex
dt
¼ y 2  aðy 1  x1 Þ þ u1 ðtÞ;
dey
ð8Þ
dt
¼ x2 þ kð1  x22 Þy 2  ðc  aÞx1  cy 1 þ x1 z1 þ u2 ðtÞ;
where ex = x2  x1, ey = y2  y1 and e = (ex, ey)T.
If we choose a controller as follows:
u1 ðtÞ ¼ y 2 þ aðy 1  x2 Þ;

u2 ðtÞ ¼ x2  kð1  x22 Þy 2 þ ðc  aÞx1  cy 1  x1 z1  y 2 þ y 1 : ð9Þ

Then the error system can be rewritten as

40.00

20.00
x1

0.00

-20.00 x2

-40.00
t
a 0.00 2.00 4.00 6.00 8.00 10.00

40.00

20.00 y1

0.00

-20.00

y2
-40.00

-60.00
t
b 0.00 2.00 4.00 6.00 8.00 10.00

Fig. 3. The time response of states for drive system (x1, y1) and response system (x2, y2) with the control laws activated: (a) signals x1
and x2 and (b) signals y1 and y2 (x1 and y1, —; x2 and y2, - - -).
 E.M. Elabbasy, M.M. El-Dessoky / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 36 (2008) 1425–1435 1431

10.00

0.00 ex

-10.00
ey

-20.00

-30.00
t
0.00 4.00 8.00 12.00 16.00 20.00

Fig. 4. The behavior of the trajectories ex and ey of the error system tends to zero as t tends to 4.

dex
dt
¼ aex ;
dey
ð10Þ
dt
¼ ey :
Let us consider the Lyapunov function V which is defined by
V ðex ; ey Þ ¼ e2x þ e2y :
It is clear that the Lyapunov function V(e) is a positive definite function. Now, taking the time derivative of V(e), we
found that both V(e) and V_ ðeÞ are positive definite functions. Therefore, this choice will lead the error states to converge
to zero as time t tends to infinity and hence the synchronization of two different systems is achieved.

3.1. Numerical results

In this section, numerical simulations are given to verify the active control method. In these numerical simulations,
fourth-order Runge–Kutta method is used to solve the systems of differential equations(6)–(8). In addition, a time step
of size 0.001 is employed. We select the parameters of the Chen system as a = 35, b = 3 and c = 28 and the parameters
of the van der Pol oscillator as k = 10. The initial values of the drive system and response system are taken as
x1(0) = 10, y1(0) = 25, z1(0) = 36, x2(0) = 2 and y2(0) = 2, respectively, hence the error system has the initial values
ex(0) = 8 and ey(0) = 23. The results of the simulation of the Chen system and van der Pol with controller connected
from the circuit are shown in Fig. 3: (a) displays the x1 and x2 and (b) displays the y1 and y2. Fig. 4 shows the behavior
of the trajectories ex and ey of the error system as it tends to zero.

4. Synchronization of forced van der Pol oscillator with Chen system

In this section, we consider the same problem as in the above section.We assume that the drive system is the forced
van der Pol system with three state variables denoted by the subscript 1, and the response system is the Chen system
with two state variables denoted by the subscript 2. Our aim is to design a controller and make the response system
trace the drive system and become ultimately the same. The forced van der Pol system, as a drive system, is described
by the following equations:
dx1
dt
¼ y1;
dy 1
dt
¼ x1 þ kð1  x21 Þy 1 þ kbk cos z1 ; ð11Þ
dz1
dt
¼ k;
1432 E.M. Elabbasy, M.M. El-Dessoky / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 36 (2008) 1425–1435

12.00

8.00

x2

4.00

x1
0.00

-4.00
t
a 0.00 20.00 40.00 60.00 80.00 100.00

80.00

40.00

y2
0.00
y1

-40.00

-80.00 t
b 0.00 20.00 40.00 60.00 80.00 100.00

120.00

80.00

40.00

z2

z1
0.00 t
c 0.00 20.00 40.00 60.00 80.00 100.00

Fig. 5. The time response of states for drive system (forced van der Pol) (x1, y1, z1) and response system (Chen system) (x2, y2, z2) active
control activated: (a) signals x1 and x2, (b) signals y1 and y2, (c) signals z1 and z2, (x1, y1 and z1, —:x2, y2 and z2, - - -).
 E.M. Elabbasy, M.M. El-Dessoky / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 36 (2008) 1425–1435 1433

and the Chen system , as a response system, is given by

dx2
dt
¼ aðy 2  x2 Þ þ u1 ðtÞ;
dy 2
dt
¼ ðc  aÞx2 þ cy 2  x2 z2 þ u2 ðtÞ; ð12Þ
dz2
dt
¼ x2 y 2  bz2 þ u3 ðtÞ;
where U = [u1(t), u2(t), u3(t)] is the controller function to be designed. The aim of this section is to determine the con-
troller U for the synchronization of two different attractors. For this purpose, the error dynamical system between the
drive system (11) and response system (12) is
dex
dt
¼ aðy 2  x2 Þ  y 1 þ u1 ðtÞ;
dey
dt
¼ ðc  aÞx2 þ cy 2  x2 z2 þ x1  kð1  x21 Þy 1  kbk cos z1 þ u2 ðtÞ; ð13Þ
dez
dt
¼ x2 y 2  bz2  k þ u3 ðtÞ;
where ex = x2  x1, ey = y2  y1, ez = z2  z1 and e = (ex, ey, ez)T.
If we take a controller function as follows:
u1 ðtÞ ¼ y 1  aðy 2  x1 Þ;
u2 ðtÞ ¼ x1 þ kð1  x21 Þy 1 þ kbk cos z1 þ ða  cÞx2  cy 1 þ x1 z1  y 2 þ y 1 ; ð14Þ
u3 ðtÞ ¼ x2 y 2 þ bz1 þ k:
Then the error system can be rewritten as
dex
dt
¼ aex ;
dey
dt
¼ ey ; ð15Þ
dez
dt
¼ bez :
Let us consider the Lyapunov function V which is defined by
V ðex ; ey ; ez Þ ¼ e2x þ e2y þ e2z :
It is clear that the Lyapunov function V(e) is a positive definite function. Now, taking the time derivative of V(e), we
found that both V(e) and V_ ðeÞ are positive definite functions. Therefore, this choice will lead the error states to converge
to zero as time t tends to infinity and hence the synchronization of two different systems is achieved.
Although, the chaotic motion is aperiodic, the above shows that this aperiodic solution has been forced to behave
like a periodic stable solution after a short period of time.

40.00

30.00 ez

20.00

10.00
ey

0.00
ex

-10.00 t
0.00 2.00 4.00 6.00 8.00 10.00

Fig. 6. The behavior of the trajectories ex, ey and ez of the error system tends to zero as t tends to 5.
1434 E.M. Elabbasy, M.M. El-Dessoky / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 36 (2008) 1425–1435

4.1. Numerical results

In this section, numerical simulations are given to verify the active control method. In these numerical simulations,
fourth-order Runge–Kutta method is used to solve the systems of differential equations (11), (12) and (14). In addition,
a time step of size 0.001 is employed. We select the parameters of the forced van der Pol oscillator as k = 30, b = 0.27
and k = 1 and the parameters of the Chen system as a = 35, b = 3 and c = 28. The initial values of the drive system and
response system are taken as x1(0) = 2, y1(0) = 2, z1(0) = 1, x2(0) = 10, y2(0) = 25 and z2(0) = 36, respectively, hence
the error system has the initial values ex(0) = 8, ey(0) = 23 and ez(0) = 35. The results of the simulation of the forced
van der Pol and Chen system with the active controller connect in the circuit are shown in Fig. 5: (a) displays the x1
and x2, (b) displays the y1 and y2 and (c) displays the z1 and z2. Fig. 6 shows the behavior of the trajectories ex, ey
and ez of the error system as it tends to zero.

5. Conclusion

This study demonstrates chaos synchronization between two different systems. The nonlinear control technique has
been used to synchronize the forced and nonforced stable van der Pol system with the Chen chaotic dynamical system.
Numerical simulations are used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control techniques.

Acknowledgement

This research is supported by Mansoura University grant.

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