On the Control of Chaos in Extended Structures

Abstract

A mechanism is proposed for synchronizing the chaotic vibrations of an externally forced array of oscillators with nearest-neighbor viscoelastic coupling. The proposed mechanism involves the application of small time-dependent perturbations to the individual oscillators. The perturbations required to preserve the coherence are of the order of magnitude of any noise present. The mechanism works with any form of external forcing. A modification of the mechanism is used to control the forced chaotic vibrations of a single Duffing oscillator allowed to vibrate out of the vertical plane.