A smooth chaotic map with parameterized shape and symmetry

We introduce in this paper a new chaotic map with dynamical properties controlled by two free parameters. The map definition is based on the hyperbolic tangent function, so it is called the tanh map. We demonstrate that the Lyapunov exponent of the tanh map is robust, remaining practically unaltered with the variation of its parameters. As the main application, we consider a chaotic communication system based on symbolic dynamics with advantages over current approaches that use piecewise linear maps. In this context, we propose a new measure, namely, the spread rate, to study the local structure of the chaotic dynamics of a one-dimensional chaotic map.