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Chaos, Solitons and Fractals xxx (2007) xxx–xxx

www.elsevier.com/locate/chaos

PID control for chaotic synchronization using particle

swarm optimization
Wei-Der Chang *

Department of Computer and Communication, Shu-Te University, Kaohsiung 824, Taiwan

Accepted 22 January 2007

Abstract

In this paper, we attempt to use the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller to achieve the chaos synchro-
nization for delayed discrete chaotic systems. Three PID control gains can be optimally determined by means of using a
novel optimization algorithm, called the particle swarm optimization (PSO). The algorithm is motivated from the
organism behavior of fish schooling and bird flocking, and involves the social psychology principles in socio-cognition
human agents and evolutionary computations. It has a good numerical convergence for solving optimization problem.
To show the validity of the PSO-based PID control for chaos synchronization, several cases with different initial pop-
ulations are considered and some simulation results are shown.
Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

For the past decade, more and more researches related about chaotic systems have been proposed and explored. The
chaotic system is well-known for its highly non-linear behavior and has numerous special features, such as much sen-
sitivity to its initial values, board spectra for its Fourier transform, and fractal properties of the motion in the phase
plane. Due to these features, it has been successfully applied to various fields, for example, secure communication, bio-
logical system, and power converters, to mention a few. Chaos synchronization [1–6] is one of the important research
topics on chaotic explorations. Pecora and Carroll initially presented the synchronization of chaotic systems via a drive-
response configuration. The output of drive system is used to control the output of response system so that they oscil-
late in a synchronized manner [1]. In [2], the author applied the active control to achieve the synchronization for two
identical Rikitake two-disc dynamo systems. On the sequential application of the active control, transitions from tem-
porary phase locking state to complete synchronization state were found. The active control technique was also pro-
posed to enable the generalized projective synchronization for the Lorenz and Chen’s systems [3]. Additionally,
several different control strategies were demonstrated to achieve the synchronization for a variety of chaotic systems,
such as non-linear control [4], adaptive control [5], and linear feedback control [6]. In these studies, the stability of the
closed-loop chaotic systems is guaranteed based on using the Lyapunov theorem.

*
Tel./fax: +886 7 6158000.
E-mail address: wdchang@mail.stu.edu.tw

0960-0779/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.chaos.2007.01.064

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In 1995, Kenny and Eberhart initially proposed a new evolutionary algorithm which is called particle swarm opti-
mization (PSO) to solve optimization problems [7]. The algorithm is inspired by the organism behavior of fish schooling
and bird flocking, and involves the social psychology principles in socio-cognition human agents and evolutionary com-
putations. The features of the PSO algorithm are summarized as follows [8]:

1. It only uses the performance index to guide the search in the problem space. Hence the algorithm is very suitable for
dealing with non-differentiable objective functions. This property relieves PSO algorithm of certain assumptions on
objective function, which are often needed in the traditional optimization methods.
2. It is a population-based search algorithm. This property ensures PSO algorithm to be less likely to become trapped
at a local minimum.
3. It has the flexibility to control the balance between the global and local exploration of the search space. This unique
feature of PSO overcomes the premature problem and enhances the search capability.
4. It is easily and efficiently implemented to the computer programs.

Due to these good features, the PSO algorithm is suitably introduced into the determination of three PID control
gains for chaotic synchronization. Chaos synchronization of two identical delayed discrete systems will be achieved by
using the resulted PID controller. Besides, the simulation results obtained from different sets of initial random popu-
lation are demonstrated to verify the validity of the PSO algorithm. The rest of this paper is organized in the following.
Problem statements for PID controller and delayed discrete chaotic systems are introduced in Section 2. In Section 3, a
complete and detailed step of PSO-based PID control design is presented. Numerical simulations for delayed chaotic
system synchronization are given in Section 4. Finally, Section 5 gives a brief conclusion about this study.

2. Problem statements

2.1. PID controller

The PID controller is the standard tool for industrial automation. The flexibility of the controller makes it possible
to use PID control in many applications. Many control problems can be handled very well by PID control [9]. The con-
tinuous control law of PID controller is
Z t
d
uðtÞ ¼ K p eðtÞ þ K i eðsÞds þ K d eðtÞ; ð1Þ
0 dt

where e is the error signal between the desired and actual outputs, u is the PID control force, parameters Kp, Ki, and Kd
are the proportional, integral, and derivative gains, respectively. Using trapezoidal approximations for (1) to obtain the
discrete control law, we have
Ts 1
uðkÞ ¼ uðk  1Þ þ K p ½eðkÞ  eðk  1Þ þ K i ½eðkÞ þ eðk  1Þ þ K d ½eðkÞ  2eðk  1Þ þ eðk  2Þ; ð2Þ
2 Ts

where Ts is the sampling period. How to solve these three gains to meet the required performance is the most key in the
PID control system. For convenience, let H ¼ ½h1 ; h2 ; h3  ¼ ½K p ; K i ; K d  for later uses.

2.2. Non-linear delayed discrete chaotic systems

In this study, two identical delayed discrete chaotic systems are considered to be synchronized using the proposed
PID control. The master system is given by the following difference equation [10]:
d e
xðk þ 1Þ ¼ xðkÞ  xðk  mÞ þ x3 ðk  mÞ; ð3Þ
m m
where d and e are positive constants, m is the delay term, and x is the master state. The delayed discrete system admits
decaying, oscillatory, and chaotic behavior relying on settings of system parameters. On the other hand, the corre-
sponding slave system is described by
d e
yðk þ 1Þ ¼ yðkÞ  yðk  mÞ þ y 3 ðk  mÞ þ uðkÞ; ð4Þ
m m

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where y is the slave state and u is the external control force that adopts the PID control of (2). For two identical delayed
discrete chaotic systems (3) and (4) without control u, the state trajectories of these two chaotic systems will quickly
separate each other if their initial conditions are not the same. However, the state trajectories can approach synchro-
nization for any initial conditions if an appropriate controller is utilized. Hence the purpose of this paper is to apply the
PSO algorithm to find out the optimal PID control gains such that chaos synchronization for two identical delayed
discrete chaotic systems is achieved.

3. PSO algorithm

The convergence of the PSO algorithm toward the optimal solution is guided only by the size, not differentiation, of
cost function. We need to define an appropriate cost function before the algorithm is executed. For simplicity, the cost
function used in the study is defined as the total of absolute value of error between the master and slave states as
X
num X
num
J¼ jxðkÞ  yðkÞj ¼ jeðkÞj; ð5Þ
k¼0 k¼0

where num is the total number of sampling. We wish that the cost function J can be minimized by using the PSO algo-
rithm and further solve the optimal PID control gains. Some main elements used in the PSO system are introduced in
the following [8].

Fig. 1. (a) Convergence of cost function for Case 1. (b) Convergences of three PID gains for Case 1.

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1. Particle HðkÞ: It is the most basic element of PSO system and represents a candidate solution of PID control gains.
The particle H ¼ ½h1 ; h2 ; h3  ¼ ½K p ; K i ; K d  is defined as mentioned above. At kth iteration, the ith particle is denoted
by Hi ðkÞ ¼ ½hi;1 ðkÞ; hi;2 ðkÞ; hi;3 ðkÞ. Note that during search process the resulted gain is constrained by the interval
½hmin ; hmax  as
8
< hmin if hj < hmin
>
hj ¼ hj if hmin 6 hj 6 hmax ð6Þ
>
:
hmax if hj > hmax
for j ¼ 1; 2; 3.
2. Population: A population is composed of H particles as ½H1 ; H2 ; . . . ; HH T .
3. Particle velocity V(k): The particle velocity V(k) denotes a moving velocity of particle HðkÞ. At kth iteration, the ith
particle velocity V i ðkÞ is denoted by V i ðkÞ ¼½vi;1 ðkÞ; vi;2 ðkÞ; vi;3 ðkÞ.
4. Individual best P(k): When a particle moves through the search space, it needs to compare its current cost function
with the best one which it has ever attained so far. The particle with the best cost function is called the individual best
P(k). The individual best P i ðkÞ of the ith particle is solved such that J ðP i ðkÞÞ 6 J ðHi ðsÞÞ, for s 6 k, where J ðP i Þ and
J ðHi Þ denote the cost functions of the individual best Pi and particle Hi, respectively. At kth iteration, the ith indi-
vidual best is denoted by P i ðkÞ ¼½pi;1 ðkÞ; pi;2 ðkÞ; pi;3 ðkÞ.
5. Global best G(k): The global best G(n) is the best one among all of the individual best particles. At kth iteration, the
global best GðkÞ ¼ ½g1 ðkÞ; g2 ðkÞ; g3 ðkÞ is solved such that J ðGðkÞÞ 6 J ðP i ðkÞÞ for i ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; H .

Fig. 2. (a) Convergence of cost function for Case 2. (b) Convergences of three PID gains for Case 2.

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6. Velocity updating V ðk þ 1Þ: According to the individual best and global best positions, the ith particle velocity with
respect to the jth dimension is updated by the following equation, for i ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; H and j ¼ 1; 2; 3,
vi;j ðk þ 1Þ ¼ wvi;j ðkÞ þ c1 r1 ðpi;j ðkÞ  hi;j ðkÞÞ þ c2 r2 ðgj ðkÞ  hi;j ðkÞÞ; ð7Þ
where w is called the inertia weight that controls the impact of the current velocity vi;j ðkÞ on the next velocity vi;j ðk þ 1Þ,
c1 and c2 are two positive acceleration coefficients that pull each particle toward the individual best and global best posi-
tions, respectively, and r1 and r2 are two random numbers chosen from the interval [0, 1] uniformly. For simplicity, here
we let w ¼ 0:5 and c1 ¼ c2 ¼ 1:2.
7. Position updating Hðk þ 1Þ: After obtaining the velocity updating, each particle position is changed to next one
according to the updating equation:
hi;j ðk þ 1Þ ¼ hi;j ðkÞ þ vi;j ðk þ 1Þ; fori ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; H and j ¼ 1; 2; 3: ð8Þ
8. Termination condition: In general, there are two common conditions under which the PSO algorithm will be termi-
nated: (i) the objective function of the global best is less than certain pre-specified value or (ii) the number of iter-
ations achieves the maximum allowable number N. In this study, the second criterion is adopted to terminate the
algorithm.

The whole design steps of PSO-based PID control for chaotic synchronization can be summarized as follows:

Step 1: Randomly generate a H-particles population from the interval [0, 1].

Fig. 3. (a) Convergence of cost function for Case 3. (b) Convergences of three PID gains for Case 3.

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Step 2:
If the pre-specified number of iterations N is achieved, then stop the algorithm.
Step Calculate the cost function J ðHi Þ for each particle Hi using (5).
3:
Step For each particle, find the individual best P i ðkÞ such that J ðP i ðkÞÞ 6 J ðHi ðsÞÞ, for s 6 k.
4:
Step Find the global best G(k) such that J ðGðkÞÞ 6 J ðP i ðkÞÞ, for i ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; H .
5:
Step 6:
Update the velocity of each particle using (7).
Step 7:
Update the position of each particle using (8) and apply the lower and upper bounds of (6) if it falls outside the
interval ½hmin ; hmax .
Step 8: Go back to Step 2.

4. Numerical results

This section demonstrates the feasibility of the PSO-based PID control design for synchronization of two identical
delayed discrete chaotic systems. The packet software of Borland C++ 5.02 is used to program the proposed algorithms.
In the numerical simulation, chaotic parameters in (3) and (4) are chosen as d ¼ 0:36, e ¼ 1, and m ¼ 10 to exhibit the
chaotic behavior, and their initial conditions are different as xðkÞ ¼ 0:5 and yðkÞ ¼ 0:5 for k ¼ m; m þ 1; . . . ; 0. The
sampling period Ts is set to 1.0 for simulating the non-linear delayed chaotic equations. In addition, the values assigned
to the related variables of the PSO algorithm are given by num ¼ 60, ½hmin ; hmax  ¼ ½0; 10, H = 100, and N = 200.

Fig. 4. (a) Convergence of cost function for Case 4. (b) Convergences of three PID gains for Case 4.

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Fig. 5. State responses of master and slave delayed discrete chaotic systems.

We perform four simulation cases with different random sets of initial populations to verify the effectiveness of the
proposed method. All particles of the initial population are generated at random from the interval [0, 1] in the begin-
ning. The simulation results, including the convergence curves of cost function and PID control gains, are shown in
Figs. 1–4, respectively, for four different simulation cases. All of cost functions eventually converge to 2.0433 and all
of three PID control gains finally converge to Kp = 1.3325, Ki = 0.665, and Kd = 0.0 for four simulation cases. The
results confirm that the solution quality of PSO algorithm does not rely on the initial population. From any starting
points, the algorithm still ensures the convergence to the optimal solution. Moreover, these figures also reveal that pro-
posed PSO algorithm has stable convergence with good computational efficiency. To observe the chaos synchroniza-
tion, Fig. 5 shows the state responses of the master and slave systems using the resulting PID controller. It is
obvious that the proposed PSO-based PID control works well for synchronization of delayed discrete chaotic systems.

5. Conclusions

This paper has been successfully proposed the PSO algorithm to the optimal design of PID control for synchroni-
zation of two identical delayed discrete chaotic systems. Three PID control gains are determined by using the PSO algo-
rithm with minimizing the defined cost function. Four different sets of initial populations are examined to demonstrate
the validity of the proposed method for chaotic synchronization. The numerical results reveal that the state responses of
master and slave chaotic systems can be synchronized by the obtained PID controller.

Acknowledgement

This work is partially supported by the National Science Council, Taiwan, under grant 95-2221-E-366-006.

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Please cite this article in press as: Chang W-D, PID control for chaotic synchronization using particle ..., Chaos,
Solitons & Fractals (2007), doi:10.1016/j.chaos.2007.01.064