On-off intermittency from a ring of four-coupled PLLs

In this paper, on-off intermittency observed in a ring of four-coupled PLLs is studied theoretically and experimentally. There exists a semistable inv ariant manifold in the phase space of this system. The orbit is irregularly transitioning between the laminar state constrains to the invariant manifo ld and the burst state jumping outward. In this research, the transversal L yapunov exponent is first computed. It is then pointed out that on-off inte rmittency can appear with many parameter values. As an example, it is made clear from the calculations of several statistical characteristic quantitie s such as the local transversal expansion rate and laminar phase distributi on that the intermittency generated with one of these parameters is an on-o ff intermittency. Further, by studying the bifurcation of the periodic solu tion on an invariant manifold, the generating mechanism of this on-off inte rmittency is made clear geometrically. (C) 2000 Scripts Technica.