An enhanced multi-wing fractional-order chaotic system with coexisting attractors and switching hybrid synchronisation with its nonautonomous counterpart

This paper presents a new chaotic system that exhibits a two wing (2W) chaotic attractor in its integer order dynamics, three-wing (3W) and four-wing (4W) chaotic attractors in its fractional-order (FO) dynamics, and an eight-wing (8W) attractor in its nonautonomous fractional dynamics. An interesting feature of the proposed system is that two distinct periodic orbits coexist with a strange attractor that gradually evolves into a 4W attractor. The asymmetry, dissimilarity and topological structure of this proposed system with respect to those available in literature, manifest increased irregularity, which in turn indicate more chaos. Besides, the authors have drawn its comparison with various well-known fractional-order chaotic systems (FOCS)s to prove its enhanced features in terms of higher Lyapunov Exponent, fractional order orbital velocities, bandwidth, density, range of dynamical behaviour, etc. A control scheme is proposed to enable switching hybrid synchronisation between the 8W nonautonomous FOCS and the 4W autonomous FOCS, using the former as master and the latter as slave. This work throws light on the potential practical applicability of the proposed system by designing a circuit using minimum circuit components possible, thus signifying the objectives of the paper are finally achieved. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.