Emergence and suppression of chaos in small interdependent networks by localized periodic excitations

Abstract

Mastering the emergence and suppression of chaos of complex networks is currently a fundamental task for the nonlinear science community with potential relevant applications in diverse fields such as microgrid technologies, neural control engineering, and ecological networks. Here, the emergence and suppression of chaos in a complex network of driven damped pendula, which consists of two small starlike networks coupled by a single link, is investigated in the case where only the two hubs are subject to impulse-induced chaos-mastering excitations. Distinct chaos-mastering scenarios are found which depend on whether the connectivity strategy between the starlike networks is hub-to-hub, hub-to-leaf, or leaf-to-leaf. An explanation is given of the underlying physical mechanisms of these chaos-mastering scenarios and their main characteristics. The findings may be seen as a contribution to an intermediate step towards the long-term goal of mastering chaos in scale-free networks of damped-driven nonlinear systems.