Experimental characterization of stochastic resonance in coupled chaotic circuits

Stochastic Resonance is a phenomenon observed in nonlinear systems whereby an input signal is optimized due to the beneficial effect of noise. This phenomenon has been observed in many real-world systems[1] including lasers, chemical reactions and biological systems and has many potential applications. This report will focus on the phenomenon of phase synchronization in coupled chaotic systems and will present a metric which gives a better indication of the optimum level of phase synchronization in the presence of noise. This metric, known as the average phase synchronization time will result in a curve that is cusp shaped which gives a narrower range of optimum noise levels than the bell shaped curves obtained for other metrics such as signal-to-noise ratio. Finally experimental evidence for the theory will be presented using coupled Chua circuits along with a discussion of the phenomena observed therein.