Chua’s Circuit – A Universal Paradigm for Generating and Studying Chaos
Prem Bhushan Mital, Umesh Kumar and Rai Sachindra Prasad
In this introductory tutorial paper, the generality of Chua’s oscillator in generating and studying chaos via various routes viz period doubling, intermittency, torus breakdown etc. have been discussed. Chua’s circuit is the only known example of a physical system which has shown to be chaotic using three different approaches: computer simulation, laboratory experiments and mathematical analysis. The circuit is canonical in the sense that it contains the smallest number of circuit parameters necessary to exhibit all possible nonlinear dynamics and chaotic behaviours that can be obtained from a 21-parameter family of continuous odd–symmetric piecewise-linear vector fields. A wide variety of bifurcations and chaotic phenomena have be obtained successfully from this circuit via computer simulations and experimental models since its inception in the year 1983.