Self-organization in arrays of nonlinear systems induced by chaotic perturbation: An experimental approach

In this work, the effects of diversity in large arrays of chaotic systems are studied. It is here shown how very regular spatio-temporal patterns are achieved by perturbing a system parameter with a suitable spatial disturbance. Moreover, it is shown that synchronization and order is better achieved if the variation of the parameter is generated by a chaotic system rather than by a random generator based on a stochastic process with uniform distribution. Our conjecture is then validated by several simulation experiences on long chains of both mechanical (pendula) and electrical (Chua's circuits) systems.