Extracting messages masked by chaotic signals of time-delay systems

Incomplete phase-space method to reveal time delay from scalar time series

A computationally quick and conceptually simple method to recover time delay of the chaotic system from scalar time series is developed in this paper. We show that the orbits in the incomplete two-dimensional reconstructed phase-space will show local clustering phenomenon after the component reordering procedure proposed in this work. We find that information captured by the incomplete two-dimensional reconstructed phase-space is related to the time delay τ_{0} present in the system, and will be transferred to the reordered component by the procedure of component reordering. We then propose the segmented mean variance (SMV) from the reordered component to identify the time delay τ_{0} of the system. The proposed SMV shows clear maximum when the embedding delay τ of the incomplete reconstruction matches the time delay τ_{0} of the chaotic system. Numerical data generated by a time-delay system based on the Mackey-Glass equation operating in the chaotic regime are used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed SMV. Experimental results show that the proposed SMV is robust to additive observational noise and is able to recover the time delay of the chaotic system even though the amount of data is relatively small and the feedback strength is weak. Moreover, the time complexity of the proposed method is quite low.

Evolution of time delay signature of chaos generated in a mutually delay-coupled semiconductor lasers system

In this paper, evolution of time delay (TD) signature of chaos generated in a mutual delay-coupled semiconductor lasers (MDC-SLs) system is investigated experimentally and theoretically. Two statistical methods, including self-correlation function (SF) and permutation entropy (PE), are used to estimate the TD signature of chaotic time series. Through extracting the characteristic peak from the SF curve, a series of TD signature evolution maps are firstly obtained in the parameter space of coupled strength and frequency detuning. Meantime, the influences of injection current on the evolution maps of TD signature have been discussed, and the optimum scope of TD signature suppression is also specified. An overall qualitative agreement between our theoretical and experimental results is obtained.

Global phase synchronization in an array of time-delay systems

We report the identification of global phase synchronization (GPS) in a linear array of unidirectionally coupled Mackey-Glass time-delay systems exhibiting highly non-phase-coherent chaotic attractors with complex topological structure. In particular, we show that the dynamical organization of all the coupled time-delay systems in the array to form GPS is achieved by sequential synchronization as a function of the coupling strength. Further, the asynchronous ones in the array with respect to the main sequentially synchronized cluster organize themselves to form clusters before they achieve synchronization with the main cluster. We have confirmed these results by estimating instantaneous phases including phase difference, average phase, average frequency, frequency ratio, and their differences from suitably transformed phase coherent attractors after using a nonlinear transformation of the original non-phase-coherent attractors. The results are further corroborated using two other independent approaches based on recurrence analysis and the concept of localized sets from the original non-phase-coherent attractors directly without explicitly introducing the measure of phase.

Synchronization in coupled time-delayed systems with parameter mismatch and noise perturbation

In this paper, a design of coupling and effective sufficient condition for stable complete synchronization and antisynchronization of a class of coupled time-delayed systems with parameter mismatch and noise perturbation are established. Based on the LaSalle-type invariance principle for stochastic differential equations, sufficient conditions guaranteeing complete synchronization and antisynchronization with constant time delay are developed. Also delay-dependent sufficient conditions for the case of time-varying delay are derived by using the Lyapunov approach for stochastic differential equations. Numerical examples fully support the analytical results.

Generalized projective synchronization in time-delayed systems: nonlinear observer approach

In this paper, we consider the projective-anticipating, projective, and projective-lag synchronization in a unified coupled time-delay system via nonlinear observer design. A new sufficient condition for generalized projective synchronization is derived analytically with the help of Krasovskii-Lyapunov theory for constant and variable time-delay systems. The analytical treatment can give stable synchronization (anticipatory and lag) for a large class of time-delayed systems in which the response system's trajectory is forced to have an amplitude proportional to the drive system. The constant of proportionality is determined by the control law, not by the initial conditions. The proposed technique has been applied to synchronize Ikeda and prototype models by numerical simulation.

Delay time modulation induced oscillating synchronization and intermittent anticipatory/lag and complete synchronizations in time-delay nonlinear dynamical systems

Existence of a new type of oscillating synchronization that oscillates between three different types of synchronizations (anticipatory, complete, and lag synchronizations) is identified in unidirectionally coupled nonlinear time-delay systems having two different time-delays, that is feedback delay with a periodic delay time modulation and a constant coupling delay. Intermittent anticipatory, intermittent lag, and complete synchronizations are shown to exist in the same system with identical delay time modulations in both the delays. The transition from anticipatory to complete synchronization and from complete to lag synchronization as a function of coupling delay with suitable stability condition is discussed. The intermittent anticipatory and lag synchronizations are characterized by the minimum of the similarity functions and the intermittent behavior is characterized by a universal asymptotic -32 power law distribution. It is also shown that the delay time carved out of the trajectories of the time-delay system with periodic delay time modulation cannot be estimated using conventional methods, thereby reducing the possibility of decoding the message by phase space reconstruction.

Encryption and decryption of images with chaotic map lattices

We propose a secure algorithm for direct encryption and decryption of digital images with chaotic map lattices. The basic idea is to convert, pixel by pixel, the image color to chaotic logistic maps one-way coupled by initial conditions. After small numbers of iterations and cycles, the image becomes indistinguishable due to inherent properties of chaotic systems. Since the maps are coupled, the image can be completely recovered by the decryption algorithm if map parameters, number of iterations, number of cycles, and the image size are exactly known.

Encryption with synchronized time-delayed systems

We propose a new communication scheme that uses time-delayed chaotic systems with delay time modulation. In this method, the transmitter encodes a message as an additional modulation of the delay time and then the receiver decodes the message by tracking the delay time. We demonstrate our communication scheme in a system of coupled logistic maps. Also we discuss the error of the transferred message due to an external noise and present its correction method.

Breaking a chaos-noise-based secure communication scheme

This paper studies the security of a secure communication scheme based on two discrete-time intermittently chaotic systems synchronized via a common random driving signal. Some security defects of the scheme are revealed: 1) The key space can be remarkably reduced; 2) the decryption is insensitive to the mismatch of the secret key; 3) the key-generation process is insecure against known/chosen-plaintext attacks. The first two defects mean that the scheme is not secure enough against brute-force attacks, and the third one means that an attacker can easily break the cryptosystem by approximately estimating the secret key once he has a chance to access a fragment of the generated keystream. Yet it remains to be clarified if intermittent chaos could be used for designing secure chaotic cryptosystems.

Generalized synchronization in time-delayed systems

We investigate the generalized synchronization between two unidirectionally linearly and nonlinearly coupled chaotic nonidentical Ikeda models and find existence conditions of the generalized synchronization. Also we study the chaos synchronization between nonidentical Ikeda models with variable feedback-delay times and find the existence and sufficient stability conditions for the retarded synchronization manifold with the coupling-delay lag time. Generalization of the approach to the wide class of nonlinear chaotic systems is also presented.

Enhancing chaoticity of spatiotemporal chaos

In some practical situations strong chaos is needed. This introduces the task of chaos control with enhancing chaoticity rather than suppressing chaoticity. In this paper a simple method of linear amplifications incorporating modulo operations is suggested to make spatiotemporal systems, which may be originally chaotic or nonchaotic, strongly chaotic. Specifically, this control can eliminate periodic windows, increase the values and the number of positive Lyapunov exponents, make the probability distributions of the output chaotic sequences more homogeneous, and reduce the correlations of chaotic outputs for different times and different space units. The applicability of the method to practical tasks, in particular to random number generators and secure communications, is briefly discussed.

Transition from anticipatory to lag synchronization via complete synchronization in time-delay systems

The existence of anticipatory, complete, and lag synchronization in a single system having two different time delays, that is, feedback delay tau1 and coupling delay tau2, is identified. The transition from anticipatory to complete synchronization and from complete to lag synchronization as a function of coupling delay tau2 with a suitable stability condition is discussed. In particular, it is shown that the stability condition is independent of the delay times tau1 and tau2. Consequently, for a fixed set of parameters, all the three types of synchronizations can be realized. Further, the emergence of exact anticipatory, complete, or lag synchronization from the desynchronized state via approximate synchronization, when one of the system parameters (b2) is varied, is characterized by a minimum of the similarity function and the transition from on-off intermittency via periodic structure in the laminar phase distribution.

A new spatiotemporally chaotic cryptosystem and its security and performance analyses

A one-way-coupled chaotic map lattice is proposed for cryptography of self-synchronizing stream cipher. The system performs basic floating-point analytical computation on real numbers, incorporating auxiliarily with few simple algebraic operations on integer numbers. Parallel encryption (decryption) operations of multiple chaotic sites are conducted. It is observed that the system has high practical security, fast encryption (decryption) speed with software realization, and excellent reliability against strong channel noise, and its overall cryptographic properties are considerably better than both known chaotic cryptosystems and currently used conventional cryptosystems, including the advanced encryption standard.

Effects of time-delayed feedback on chaotic oscillators

We study the effects of time-delayed feedback on chaotic systems where the delay time is both fixed (static case) and varying (dynamic case) in time. For the static case, typical phase coherent and incoherent chaotic oscillators are investigated. Detailed phase diagrams are investigated in the parameter space of feedback gain ( K ) and delay time ( tau ). Linear stability analysis, by assuming the time-delayed perturbation, varies as e(lambdat) where lambda is the eigenvalue, gives the boundaries of the stability islands and critical feedback gains ( K(c) ) for both Rössler oscillators and Lorenz oscillators. We also found that the stability island are found when the delay time is about tau= (n+ 1 / 2 ) T , where n is an integer and T is the average period of the chaotic oscillator. It is shown that these analytical predictions agree well with the numerical results. For the dynamic case, we investigate Rössler oscillator with periodically modulated delay time. Stability regimes are found for parameter space of feedback gain and modulation frequency in which it was impossible to be stabilized for a fixed delay time. We also trace the detailed routes to the stability near the island boundaries for both cases by investigating bifurcation diagrams.

Complete synchronization and generalized synchronization of one-way coupled time-delay systems

The complete synchronization and generalized synchronization (GS) of one-way coupled time-delay systems are studied. We find that GS can be achieved by a single scalar signal, and its synchronization threshold for different delay times shows the parameter resonance effect, i.e., we can obtain stable synchronization at a smaller coupling if the delay time of the driven system is chosen such that it is in resonance with the driving system. Near chaos synchronization, the desynchronization dynamics displays periodic bursts with the period equal to the delay time of the driven system. These features can be easily applied to the recovery of time-delay systems.

A secure communication scheme based on the phase synchronization of chaotic systems

Phase synchronization of chaotic systems with both weak and strong couplings has recently been investigated extensively. Similar to complete synchronization, this type of synchronization can also be applied in secure communications. We develop a digital secure communication scheme that utilizes the instantaneous phase as the signal transmitted from the drive to the response subsystems. Simulation results show that the scheme is difficult to be broken by some traditional attacks. Moreover, it operates with a weak positive conditional Lyapunov exponent in the response subsystem.

Chaos-based secure communications in a large community

One-way coupled map lattices are used for cryptography in secure communication, based on spatiotemporal chaos synchronization. The sensitivity of synchronization between the encryption and decryption systems can be adjusted by varying the system size. With a suitable parameter combination, the cryptosystem can reach optimal trade-off of security and performance, i.e., it shows high security (resistant against the public-structure and known-plaintext attacks) together with fast encryption (and decryption) speed. An experiment of duplex voice transmission through university network is realized, which confirms the above advantages of our approach.

Extracting information masked by the chaotic signal of a time-delay system

We further develop the method proposed by Bezruchko et al. [Phys. Rev. E 64, 056216 (2001)] for the estimation of the parameters of time-delay systems from time series. Using this method we demonstrate a possibility of message extraction for a communication system with nonlinear mixing of information signal and chaotic signal of the time-delay system. The message extraction procedure is illustrated using both numerical and experimental data and different kinds of information signals.

Synchronization and information processing by an on-off coupling

This paper proposes an on-off coupling process for chaos synchronization and information processing. An in depth analysis for the net effect of a conventional coupling is performed. The stability of the process is studied. We show that the proposed controlled coupling process can locally minimize the smoothness and the fidelity of dynamical data. A digital filter expression for the on-off coupling process is derived and a connection is made to the Hanning filter. The utility and robustness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by chaos synchronization in Duffing oscillators, the spatiotemporal synchronization of noisy nonlinear oscillators, the estimation of the trend of a time series, and restoration of the contaminated solution of the nonlinear Schrödinger equation.

Reconstruction of time-delay systems from chaotic time series

We propose a method that allows one to estimate the parameters of model scalar time-delay differential equations from time series. The method is based on a statistical analysis of time intervals between extrema in the time series. We verify our method by using it for the reconstruction of time-delay differential equations from their chaotic solutions and for modeling experimental systems with delay-induced dynamics from their chaotic time series.

Communicating with optical hyperchaos: information encryption and decryption in delayed nonlinear feedback systems

Recent theoretical studies and experimental demonstrations have shown the possibility of using chaos for the encryption of message signals in communication systems. Chaos is generated by systems with delayed nonlinear feedback, which feature hyperchaotic (i.e., of high dimensionality) dynamics. The different ways for the injection of the information in the emitter and the process of the synchronization of the receiver are considered. The analysis of all the possibilities can be used to choose the correct topology of communication systems and, more generally, to explain the behavior of any chaotic systems ruled by nonlinear difference-differential equations.

Synchronization of hyperchaotic harmonics in time-delay systems and its application to secure communication

We present a predictor-feedback method for synchronizing chaotic systems in this paper. By using this method, two structurally equivalent or nonequivalent systems can be synchronized very effectively and quickly. Moreover, the feedback perturbation can be switched on even if trajectories of the two systems are far from each other. Therefore, this method is applicable to real-world experimental systems, especially to some fast experimental systems. The validity of this method is demonstrated by synchronizing hyperchaotic harmonics in a time-delay system. As an application, we introduce how messages can be encoded, transmitted, and decoded using this technique. We suggest taking use of the multistability of time-delay systems to improve the performance of the secure communication.