Distinguishing Periodic and Chaotic Time Series Obtained from an Experimental Nonlinear Pendulum

The experimental analysis of nonlinear dynamical systems furnishes ascalar sequence of measurements, which may be analyzed using state spacereconstruction and other techniques related to nonlinear analysis. Thenoise contamination is unavoidable in cases of data acquisition and,therefore, it is important to recognize techniques that can be employedfor a correct identification of chaos. The present contributiondiscusses the experimental analysis of a nonlinear pendulum, consideringstate space reconstruction, frequency domain analysis and thedetermination of dynamical invariants, Lyapunov exponents and attractordimension. A procedure to construct Poincaré map of the signal ispresented. The analyses of periodic and chaotic motions are carried outin order to establish a difference between them. Results show that it ispossible to distinguish periodic and chaotic time series obtained froman experimental set up employing proper procedures even though noisesuppression is not contemplated.