Designer dynamics through chaotic traps: Controlling complex behavior in driven nonlinear systems

Control schemes for dynamical systems typically involve stabilizing unstable periodic orbits. In this paper we introduce a new paradigm of control that involves `trapping’ the dynamics arbitrarily close to any desired trajectory. This is achieved by a state-dependent dynamical selection of the input signal applied to the driven nonlinear system. An emergent property of the trapping process is that the signal changes in a chaotic sequence: a manifestation of chaos-induced order. The simplicity of the control scheme makes it easily implementable in experimental systems.