Minimal Realizations of Autonomous Chaotic Oscillators Based on Trans-Immittance Filters

This review paper describes a design process toward fully analog realizations of chaotic dynamics that can be considered canonical (minimum number of the circuit elements), robust (exhibit structurally stable strange attractors), and novel. Each autonomous chaotic lumped circuit proposed in this paper can be understood as a looped system, where linear trans-immittance frequency filter interacts with an active nonlinear two-port. The existence of chaos is demonstrated via well-established numerical algorithms that represent the current standard in the field of nonlinear dynamics, i.e., by calculation of the largest Lyapunov exponent and high-resolution 1-D bifurcation diagrams. The achieved numerical results are put into the context of experimental measurement; observed state trajectories prove a one-to-one correspondence between theoretical expectations and practical outputs, i.e., prescribed strange attractors do not represent the chaotic transients. Finally, short term unpredictability of the chaotic flow is demonstrated via calculation of Kaplan-Yorke dimension that is high, i.e., generated waveforms can find interesting applications in the fields of chaotic masking, modulation, or chaos-based cryptography.