Statistics of strange attractors by generalized cell mapping

It is proposed in this paper to use the generalized cell mapping to locate strange attractors of dynamical systems and to determine their statistical properties. The cell-to-cell mapping method is based upon the idea of replacing the state space continuum by a large collection of state space cells and of expressing the evolution of the dynamical system in terms of a cell-to-cell mapping. This leads to a Markov chain which in turn allows us to compute all the statistical properties as well as the invariant distribution. After a general discussion, the method is applied in this paper to strange attractors of a variety of systems governed either by point mappings or by differential equations. The results indicate that it is a viable, effective and attractive method. Some comments on this method in comparison with the method of direct iteration will also be made.