CONTROLLING CHAOS IN A TEMPORALLY IRREGULAR ENVIRONMENT

In this paper we examine the problem of controlling a chaotic system embedded in a time varying environment, where the environmental variation may be of relatively large amplitude, and may have a fairly irregular nature. Our results show that a previous method of controlling chaos, which selects and stabilizes unstable steady states or unstable periodic orbits, can be adapted to this time irregular situation, provided that one can make on-line, short-term predictions of the future evolution of the environment. We demonstrate this by using an example in which a ship is impacted by ocean waves on its side. The goal of control here is to prevent capsizing from taking place.