Progress in the control of chaos

Abstract

In this review, we summarize several of the key contributions made over the past 5 years to the control of chaotic dynamical systems. The idea that chaotic systems can in fact be controlled may be counter-intuitive; after all they are unpredictable in the long term. Nevertheless, numerous theorists have independently developed methods which can be applied to chaotic systems, and many experimentalists have demonstrated that physical chaotic systems respond well to both simple and sophisticated control strategies. The great bulk of these researchers have restricted their study to low-dimensional systems, and correspondingly we critique this work at length. Most recently, a few researchers have proposed control techniques for application to high- or infinite-dimensional systems, and we describe this work in some detail as well.