2017 6th International Conference on Modern Circuits and Systems Technologies (MOCAST)
A Chaotic System with Equilibria Located on an
Open Curve and Its Microcontroller Implementation
Angelos E. Giakoumis, Christos K. Volos,
Ioannis N. Stouboulos, Ioannis K. Kyprianidis
Department of Physics
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki, Greece
{angiakou; volos; stouboulos}@physics.auth.gr,
imkypr@auth.gr
Abstract In this work, the implementation of a chaotic
oscillator by using a microcontroller is proposed. The dynamical
system, which is used, belongs to the recently new proposed
category of dynamical systems with hidden attractors. In more
details, the system has an infinite number of equilibrium points
which is located on an open hyperbolic sine curve. By
programming the microcontroller, the three most useful tools of
nonlinear theory, the phase portrait, the Poincar map and the
bifurcation diagram can be produced. The comparison of these
with the respective simulation results, which are produced by
solving the continuous dynamical system with Runge-Kutta,
verified the feasibility of the proposed method.
Keywords Chaos; equilibrium; hidden attractor;
microcontroller, phase portrait; bifurcation diagram; Poincar map
I. INTRODUCTION
From more than four decades ago, chaotic oscillators have
been investigated to develop modern engineering applications.
For instance, the well-known Chuas chaotic oscillator can be
used to implement a secure communication system [1]. Other
recent applications of chaotic oscillators can be found in
biometric authentication [2], medical image encryption [3],
and so on [4, 5]. All these applications can be possible thanks
to the available electronic devices that are used to implement
them in discrete or integrated forms.
As recently shown in [6], three-dimensional autonomous
chaotic systems can generate hidden attractors with an infinite
number of equilibrium points. That way, studying systems
with hidden attractors [7, 8], is becoming a new attractive
research direction because of its practical and theoretical
importance [9]. In this manner, we introduce a new system
with hidden attractors having a single parameter (a) and a
hyperbolic sine nonlinear term, which has an infinite number
of equilibria.
The number of equilibria is helpful when classifying
chaotic oscillators. Also, hidden attractors cannot be localized
by using the standard computational procedure; therefore it is
difficult to predict the existence of them in a considered
system [9]. However, among all the currently available chaotic
systems, only a few of them possess infinite equilibrium
points [10-12].
978-1-5090-4386-6/17/$31.00 2017 IEEE
Viet-Thanh Pham
School of Electronics and Telecommunications,
Hanoi University of Science and Technology,
01 Dai Co Viet, Hanoi, Vietnam
pvt3010@gmail.com
Literature presents in the last few years some advances of
implementing chaotic systems with microcontrollers and their
applications. There are various applications of
microcontrollers, in which their produced chaotic signals can
play an important role. In 2012, two works based on a
microcontroller implementation of the logistic map [13], have
been presented. The same year, Stanciu and Datcu presented
an Atmel AVR microcontroller implementation of a new
encryption algorithm based on chaos [14]. In 2013, Volos et
al. investigated experimentally the realization of a chaotic
autonomous mobile robot, in which each one of the two
robots independent active wheels is driven by two chaotic
logistic maps implemented with Arduino Uno microcontroller
[15]. In the same year, Chiu et al. proposed an experimental
implementation in a microcontroller of the chaotic Lorenz
system [16]. Also, in 2013, Volos presented a microcontroller
implementation of a chaotic random bit generator with very
good statistical results [17].
In 2014, Ketthong and San-Um presented a new random-
bit generator, realized with a microcontroller based, on a new
signum-based piecewise-linear chaotic map [18], as well as a
generalization of four chaotic maps with absolute value
nonlinearity [19], which is experimentally implemented by
using an Arduino microcontroller. Furthermore, Andreatos
and Volos in 2014 presented a microcontroller implementation
of a text encryption algorithm based on a chaotic Chua system
[20]. In 2015, Zapateiro et al. [21] presented an experimental
realization of a chaos-based secure communication by using
Arduino microcontroller.
This paper presents the realization of a chaotic system with
equilibria located on an open curve by using a microcontroller.
II. MODEL OF THE NEW CHAOTIC SYSTEM
The proposed dynamical system is described as:
x = z
y = xz
2
(1)
2 2
z = x a sinh( y ) + z ( y z )
where x, y, z are state variables and a is the unique and
positive parameter, which makes this new chaotic system
 2017 6th International Conference on Modern Circuits and Systems Technologies (MOCAST)

modeled by (1) an elegant one. In order to find the equilibrium Lyapunov exponents. So, from Fig. 1(b) the systems chaotic
of system (1), we solve the following equations behavior is found for example for a > 0.223, where the system
has a positive Lyapunov exponent.
z=0 (2)
xz 2 = 0 (3) III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
In this work, we use the PIC32MZ2048EFH100 32-bits
x a sinh( y ) + z ( y 2 z 2 ) = 0 (4) microcontroller from Microchip with up to 250 MHz
frequency on a Development board. (Fig. 4). The data sending
By substituting (2) into (3) and (4), it is easy to verify that
via serial port on a terminal.
has an infinite number of equilibrium points. It is interesting
that such equilibrium E(x*, y*, 0) is located on an open curve
and it can be expressed as:
x* = a sinh( y ) (5)
The Jacobian matrix of system (1) at the equilibrium E(x*,
y*, 0) is given by

0 0 1

J E = 0 0 0 (6)
acosh( y* ) ( y* ) 2
1
On combining this result with det(J - I) = 0, its
characteristic equation is derived as:
(a)
(
2 ( y* ) + 1 = 0
2
) (7)

Obviously, the characteristic equation (7) has one zero

eigenvalue (1 = 0) and two nonzero eigenvalues (2,3). It is
noted that these nonzero eigenvalues depend on the sign of the
discriminant that is calculated by

= ( y* ) 4
4
(8)

When the discriminant in (8) is negative, a pair of complex

( y* ) i
2

conjugate eigenvalues arise 2 ,3 = . For = 0 or

2
(y*)2 = 2, positive eigenvalues are obtained as
( y* )
2

2 ,3 = = 1 . When the discriminant (8) is positive, we get (b)

2
( y* )
2

two nonzero eigenvalues 2 ,3 = . As a result, the

2
equilibrium point E is unstable for y* 0.
Interestingly, this new dynamical system (1) with open
curve of equilibrium generates chaotic behavior for a = 0.25
and the initial conditions (x(0), y(0), z(0)) = (0.4, 0.2, 0.1) as
illustrated in Fig. 1.
The value of the only one parameter (a) of the chaotic
system (1) is varied to investigate the dynamics. In this
manner, the bifurcation diagram is shown in Fig. 2, where it
can be appreciated that chaotic behavior can be observed for
values of a > 0.223.
(c)
Figure 3 shows the Lyapunov exponents spectra, which is Fig. 1. Phase portraits of the proposed system (1), for a = 0.25 and the
produced by using the Wolfs algorithm [22]. As we can see, initial conditions (x(0), y(0), z(0)) = (0.4, 0.2, 0.1) in x - y plane, (b) x - z
when the system has a periodic behavior all the Lyapunov plane, and (c) y - z plane.
exponents are Li 0 (i = 1, 2, 3), while when it has chaotic or
hyperchaotic behavior the system appears one or two positive
 2017 6th International Conference on Modern Circuits and Systems Technologies (MOCAST)
The C compiler uses the IEEE-754 floating-point format,
float 32 bits, double 32 bits and long double 64 bits,
( 1) x 2exp onent 127 x1.mantissa for 32 bits
sign
according to
and ( 1)
sign
x 2exp onent 1023 x1.mantissa for 64 bits.
In order to implement the oscillator with hidden attractors
into the microprocessor, we use the three dimensional chaotic
system (1) in discrete mode, using the Euler method [23].
Fig. 2. Bifurcation diagram of y versus a, of the new system (1) with open
curve of equilibrium, when the parameter a varying in the range [0.15, 0.27].
Fig. 3. The diagram of Lyapunov exponents (i) versus the parameter a, of
the new system (1) with open curve of equilibrium,when the parameter a
varying in the range [0.15, 0.27].
So, the system takes the form
(k + 1) = (k ) + h [ Z ( k ) ]
Y (k + 1) = Y (k ) + h X (k ) Z (k )
2
Z (k + 1) = Z (k ) + h X ( k ) a sinh(Y ( k )) + Z ( k ) (Y ( k ) Z ( k ) )
2 2
(9)
Here X(k), Y(k) and Z(k) make up the system state, with the
same parameter value, a, while h = 0.001 is the sampling time.
Next, the procedure with which the phase portrait, the
Poincar map and the bifurcation diagram produced, are
described in details.
A. Phase Portrait
To test the experimental results produced with the
microcontroller, a code was written by using the Microchip
XC32 v1.42 C compiler. Therefore, a file containing the X(k),
Y(k) and Z(k) of system (9), which result to the variables x(t),
y(t) and z(t) of the continuous dynamical system (1), is taken.
Figure 5, displays the phase portrait in (X, Y)-plane for a =
0.25. From the comparison of this figure with the respective
phase portrait of Fig. 1(a), which is produced by the numerical
simulation, a very good agreement between them has been
observed.
Fig. 4. The PIC32MZ2048EFH100 32-bits microcontroller from Microchip
on the Development board.
B. Poincar Map
Next, the well-known Poincar map was generated when
systems trajectory intersects a selected plane in the phase
space (X = 0) with X(k + 1) > 0. In this way, a program code
was written using the Microchip XC32 v1.42 C compiler. So,
with the aforementioned procedure, the Poincar map in Y - Z
plane, for a = 0.25, is taken (Fig. 6). From this figure the
systems expected chaotic behavior, is confirmed.
C. Bifurcation Diagram
Finally, the microcontroller was programmed to generate a
bifurcation diagram by extracting in a file the variables Y
versus the parameter a. The bifurcation diagram produced by
obtained sequential Poincar maps as the bifurcation
parameter (a) decreased with step 0.001. In Fig. 7 the
bifurcation diagram, which is produced by the capturing from
the microcontroller data, is depicted. From the comparison of
this diagram with the bifurcation diagram (Fig. 2), which is
produced by solving with the 4th order Runge-Kutta algorithm
the continuous dynamical system (1), a good agreement
between them can be observed.
IV. CONCLUSION
In this work, a microcontroller was used in order to realize
a chaotic oscillator, which belongs to the recently new
proposed category of dynamical systems with hidden
attractors. By programming the microcontroller, the three most
useful tools of nonlinear theory, the phase portrait, the
Poincar map and the bifurcation diagram was produced. The
comparison of these with the respective numerical simulation
results, which were produced by solving the continuous
dynamical system with Runge-Kutta algorithm, verified the
 2017 6th International Conference on Modern Circuits and Systems Technologies (MOCAST)
feasibility of the proposed method. As future works, possible
applications of the proposed system with hidden attractors,
implemented in the microcontroller, such as in secure
communication scheme or robot's motion control, will be
examined.
Fig. 5. Phase portrait of system (9), for a = 0.25 and initial conditions
(X(0), Y(0), Z(0)) = (0.4, 0.2, 0.1), in X - Y plane.
Fig. 6. Poincar map of Z versus Y, for a = 0.25, produced using the
microcontroller.
Fig. 7. Bifurcation diagram of Y versus a, produced using the
microcontroller.
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