Homoclinic bifurcation in Chua's circuit

Abstract

We report our experimental observations of the Shil'nikov-type homoclinic chaos in asymmetry-induced Chua's oscillator. The asymmetry plays a crucial role in the related homoclinic bifurcations. The asymmetry is introduced in the circuit by forcing a DC voltage. For a selected asymmetry, when a system parameter is controlled, we observed transition from large amplitude limit cycle to homoclinic chaos via a sequence of periodic mixed-mode oscillations interspersed by chaotic states. Moreover, we observed two intermediate bursting regimes. Experimental evidences of homoclinic chaos are verified with PSPICE simulations.